Tainted?
by Byakugan789
Summary: Warning: This is a Fanfiction on a Fanfiction that went under heavy revision and became an orrigional story. You'll need to read Kerns Drowtales dot com manga to really understand it. Summery inside along with a better disclaimer.
1. Chapter 1

Tainted?

A Drowtales spinoff

By StormFox

Disclaimer: Authors everywhere, especially my betas, please forgive me for this, but I'm writing this as an experiment in writing OC inserts without becoming a (Marry Sue/Marty Stu). There will be several but the narrator is the main. The characters of Syphile and Ariel, along with Drowtale lore belong to Kern, kite, thalar and CO. Khul, Ragnar, miko, Joel and other OC's to me. I profit nothing from this and intend no disrespect. The story line and speculations on drowtale history are my own and should not be construed to be part of any of the official Drowtales universe. This tale is based off various fictions, none of which I own. For those who are new here the primary focus fiction represented here is Drowtales, a growing, yet obscure semi-original, seven year old, 22 chapter manga by Kern. This first chapter was also inspired in part by Eoin Colfers Book The Wish List.

Please keep in mind that this is fanfiction, not shared-world-fiction, things will be different, some of it is intentional, but much of the initial differances occur because I simply don't have the understanding to do it properly.

Summary: Syphile's life took a turn for the worse when she allowed herself to become 'tainted' so she could learn summoning, but what if during the ceremony… something went wrong? What if instead of a dying demon another soul took its place. Events couldn't have turned out that different, could they?

Prologue: Becoming

No matter who you are, no matter where you're from, no matter how lucky you've been in life, you should always be careful what you wish for.

That is the lesson I learned only recently; and much too late.

I'm not sure I should really be complaining about my situation though; my life was never really that exciting before I died. I moved around a lot, always the new kid, socially awkward, hyperactive and, I've always thought, slightly mad. My being a boy with long hair probably didn't help my situation any either. I went through life dreaming mostly, a C average bibliophile and martial arts geek. I had thought things would settle down and get better once I was off at college; you know, 4 years in one place, everyone is a new kid, geeks, freaks and weirdoes are everywhere rather than just here and there. I should have been right at home, and for the most part, I was.

It was in the middle of my fourth year that it happened. I was walking home from the midyear open, our colleges martial arts club tournament, my nose buried in my latest flavor of the week manga when I heard some chuckling around me. It wasn't entirely unusual, as I've been saying, not only am I in college, I'm weird. Naturally curious, I looked up to see who was laughing and what was amusing them. Apparently what was amusing them was me and that was the last thing I should have been doing.

"Hey dweeb," the one directly in front of me jeered. "What's a _kung fu master_ doing with a girly comic book, huh?" The greasey youth asked, waving his arms around comicly as if he was in a B-class rippoff film.

"Well, I'm walking home bored and being accosted by a Neolithic eclipse apparently." I replied casually, raising an eyebrow at his antics. That turned out to be a bad idea, but what did I care at that moment? I was still warm from sparring at the tournament, and while I had never been very good, I had always been fast and I was a fair hand at deflection and evasion. It wasn't like I had never run into this situation before. They would taunt me, a few of them would toss trash my way, the leader would try to beat me to a pulp so I'd be easier to rob and he could look tough, I'd kick him around a little and they'd laugh at him and run off. It wasn't a routine, thankfully, but it had happened often enough in the past. This was Boston after all.

"So you think we're just a bunch of brainless bangers, huh, college boy?" The boy growled whipping out a knife. I sighed, never the smartest thing to do when surrounded by a group of sadistic morons.

"No, I do not believe you are 'brainless bangers', as you say. Everyone has a brain, even a paramecium. The biggest difference is the level of complexity.' 'Now kindly buzz off." Snatching back my book and trying to walk past him. I should have simply let myself be pounded on. Hah, I'd be that intelligent.

As I passed the boy he brought his knife up and then down in a ridiculously wide arc trying to stab me where my neck and shoulder met. As poorly done as his attack was, it should have been little surprise to the group that I caught the attack. I brought my arm up and around his in a wheeling grapple that ended up with his hand behind my back and my fist by his elbow. Jerking forward I pushed the offending arm into a position it was never meant to bend and there was a rather nasty popping sound followed by a scream. Releasing him, I spun around and kicked the arm of an oncoming gang member, knocking the pipe out of her hands and spinning her onto her knees, where my follow up side kick impacted with her head, knocking her out cold.

The battle probably would have continued from there if I had actually attacked the leader rather than the group hot head. As it turned out, the leader wasn't interested in me until I started resisting, it was supposed to be a quick easy ambush of a single geek on a dark campus walkway. When I started resisting the leader calmly pulled out a gun and shot me in the back.

I think he was aiming for my shoulder but the way I was moving the bullet hit me just above my right shoulder blade and continued straight in and past my heart.

Death is not kind; to anyone. When your blood is pumping and you're really scared or excited time quite often seems to slow down like a cheap Matrix rip off. You see, hear, feel and generally perceive everything on a massively increased scale even if what you perceive isn't strictly real. As my foot was about to connect with the girls head, and the leader pulled the trigger on his Glock 9mm automatic pistol, time slowed to a crawl.

It's kind of a funny feeling when your mind is moving faster than the bullet that's about to tear through you. The whole experience was all kinds of wrong on so many levels. I felt the shock run through each individual joint running up my body as my kick impacted against the girl's skull and then there was the odd twisting sensation from the bullet moving through me and finally lodging in my liver. And let's not forget the pain. No, we certainly must not forget the all encompassing pain as you get a new air vent drilled through you with a burning impact of 1200 fps lump of metal. But somehow it just wasn't quite important. 'Gods,' I thought pitying myself as I fell to the grounds limply, my shutting down to avoid the pain and ease my passing 'I'm not ready to die! There was so much left to do! If only I had had one last chance for a grand adventure that would have been swell……'

Some say that as you die you see a warm golden light calling you towards it; others maintain that there is only a rushing darkness as your senses slip away and you cease to exist. I don't know exactly what I expected but it wasn't quite what I got. As my spirit left my now limp body I felt a sort of dim awareness and a distinct impression of two things; yellow and downward motion.

**Year 1082 of the moonless age; Orthorbbae Cavern; The Crescent; Syphile's diary.**

_Today was insane, the unrest in __Chel'el'sussoloth is growing worse and the school has been flooded with members of the clans trying to hide and escape the riots and purges. I've never seen so much fear and distrust at one time. At least I'm back at school though; end of year break at the compound was nearly unbearable. Illharess is only just getting over the failure of the exorcism for her favorite daughter __Laele'aell; it left her in a drunken stupor for nearly 3 years! Not I'm surprised considering how little is left of Laele's mind but I think it's the unrest and promise of a new war that's shaken Illharess out of it. I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing… _

Syphile paused as a shout rang out in the courtyard. Dropping her quill she rushed over to the door and pressed her school amulet against it; sliding the back of the crystal against the door in a circle and murmuring the door became clear enough to look out. A woman bearing the colors of one of the larger merchant guilds was fighting with one of the school guards. 'Moron,' Syphile thought in disgust 'now you're going to get thrown outside the shields and where will you be then? Among the panicking murderous commoners or the Nidra'Chal?' sighing Syphile made a gesture and the door went opaque again.

"What was happening Syphile?" a voice on the far side of the room called out nervously. Syphile smiled at her roommate; Mal'ama Kal'Yantra was from a merchant clan of sorts. They were a small clan, even from the Sarghress standpoint, but they did possess their own formal military. They Kal'Yantra were a clan of deceptive strength and Syphile liked them. Due to their small mana auras they were often overlooked by the other clans but their golems, mechanical masterpieces of destruction, made them a force few wished to trouble unnecessarily.

"A refugee from one of the larger merchant clans seems to have picked a fight with one of the school guard. It should calm down soon. I just hope things settle before too long so it doesn't affect our classes to much." Syphile smiled and went back to her desk. She retrieved her quill and went back to writing.

…_at least she's given me permission to learn summoning! I can hardly wait till classes start, summoning is supposed to be one of the most difficult and prestigious forms of magic, only the golem lords can match an accomplished summoner in battle! I'd like to see those older girls mock me when I have a few dragons at my beck and call, hah! Mother, Illharess Quain'Tana wants me to learn a few canine summons though, as they're the clans signature animal. I suppose they won't be too bad, the mana-bearing wolves used by the clan as summons are quite large and they're supposed to be both intelligent and cunning as well… maybe I can find one of those red dogs with lots of tails that aunt Quill'Yate keeps going on about whenever she brings her raiders back to the compound. But those may just be Halmes myths; Quill'Yate has an unusual fascination with the legends of the goblin races…_

Mal'ama got up having finished whatever it was she was working on at the moment and nudged Syphile before pointing at the time keeper and leaving.

…_I think it's about time to wrap up this entry and head to dinner. If I don't get there soon my friends might not save me a seat.  
_

I have no idea how long the sensation lasted but when it finally stopped, I saw what seemed to be a series of pulsating cavernous tunnels. Each… tunnel… was a different color and a few of them seemed to bleed together in sets of two at the edges. 'Well, it's not exactly heaven, but it certainly isn't hell either.' I thought. 'Funny that I can still form coherent thoughts' I mused as I 'looked' at the golden misty sphere I now was. There was nothing really discernable about my new form beyond the fact that it matched the maelstrom of other similar spheres of energy moving around me. Again with the myriad of different colors… Most of the one surrounding me were golden as well, but every now and then one of a different color would pass near me and gravitate to its corresponding tunnel. What did the other colors mean? Did they relate to different personalities maybe? 'Gods I hope not, if they do, I really didn't have much of a life_._'

Curiously I watched my own slow but steady progress through the maelstrom of souls as I was in execrably drawn out of the spiral in the direction of the gold tunnel. As I passed the red tunnel after my seventh outward spiral I noticed that while the red souls were indeed drawn to their own tunnel that's where their patterned movement stopped. Did they move of their own free will? During my eighth circuit, I studied each of the various tunnels I passed. Each of them seemed to have their own set of unique patterns, but after reaching their designated tunnel, each spirit seemed to make its way to the end of the tunnel. There, they would merge into a massive glowing white sphere with various energy patterns around them in colors corresponding to the color of the souls being drawn in. The red tunnel was different though. There was no cluster at the end of the tunnel; there were several massive shapes and many seemed more distinct than spheres but the red souls just seemed to move around aimlessly within their area, occasionally disappearing around their tunnels walls. That, more than anything, caught my attention.

As I began the ninth circuit in my spiral toward the cavern walls and ultimately to the golden tunnel I visualized the concept of closing one's eyes in order to concentrate on something. At first nothing really happened, just a slight pulse in my outer aura, but as I increased the level of my concentration, I began to slow down. Suddenly I stopped in front of the silver tunnel. Shocked, I abruptly lost my concentration and started moving with the other spirits again.

'I did it!' I thought elatedly 'I was able to stop and resist the current! Heh, heh, now to phase two. Holding still and lowering the effort to stay there.'

Syphile entered her room and collapsed at her desk wearily. She sighed and put her hands in her head glad that at least she was not one of the school guards. Things had not improved over the last few weeks, if anything they had gotten worse. There had been seven deaths in the school alone and as the number of refugees from the Nidra'Chal riots continued to increase and that was nothing to what was happening outside Orthorbbae in Chels main cavern. Pulling out her diary Syphile began to write.

_It's been a month since school started and things are getting worse. Illharess Diva'Ratrika has finally tired of Chel tearing itself apart and the houses inability to deal with the Nirdra'Chal. She's sending out the entire weight of the Val'Sharen legion to deal with the problem. We're fairly isolated here in Orthorbbae cavern but from the news that's filtering in from the increasing number of noble clan refugees things aren't looking good. The Nidra'Chal may be small in number but if anything I've learned in class so far is worth it, demon summoning is a very dangerous art to face. _

Suddenly there was a muffled distant sounding thump and the lights dimmed. Looking around Syphile felt a chill travel up her spine. The Nidra'Chal were making another attempt on the barriers. The caverns ancient defenses had easily decimated the last group that had tried to force their way in but a sense of unease still filled her. Closing her eyes Syphile raised her hand and focused on her aura. Drawing portions of her mana into three distinct points and shaping it she summoned a trio of fairies she had earned during class to act as lights. One more faerie than most of the other students. Syphile smiled to herself, it was an extravagant waste of mana but they comforted her as a reminder of her worth and she continued writing.

_For one thing, only highly skilled priestesses and mages can see demons in their natural forms. As purely mana based creatures the can only take physical form if they possess a host and once they have the host rarely feels pain or fear. They're truly fearsome abominations and they give even the most skilled summoners problems at the best of times. Recently though there have been rumors filtering down from the upper forums that the tainting can make you immune to the demons parasitic qualities. The whole process is fascinating._

"Close it up Syphile and put your fairies away, It's almost time for evening classes." Mal'ama said in her quite way. Syphile nodded and turned back to her desk putting away the ink bottle.

_I'd better go though, Summoning Professor Jaili'dro is not a patient woman. Sadistic is more like it_.

This ghost cave, as I had come to call it, has no real concept of time so I'm not entirely sure how long I spent working on free and conscious movement but it felt like a matter of days before I was finally able to float about the central chamber with ease and at my own discretion. 'But what to do now,' I thought aimlessly. 'I'm no longer bound to end up in the golden tunnel unless I wish it and now that I've tackled conscious movement this place is relatively boring.' I mused. 'The red tunnel,' I thought. 'I wanted an adventure and it gave me ideas for this. Who's to say I couldn't learn anything else from it?'

Gliding over to the entrance to the red tunnel, I began to study it again. As I hovered there watching the comings, goings and interactions of the tunnels occupants, a quartet of red spirits, each smaller than myself, passed me moving from the central chamber into their designated tunnel. As they passed me I felt nauseous and dizzy and there was a tugging sensation as the closest of the four pulled a small amount of my aura into itself on its way past.

Frightened I moved quickly away from the red spirits and observed them as they entered their tunnel and faded into the swirling red depths. The one that had taken a piece of my aura had turned momentarily orange where our energies met and the color had spread across him before singing into his center where he faded back to crimson, slightly larger than when I had first noticed him. 'My next project' I pulsed angrily 'is to figure out how the bastard did that and then return in it in kind.'

_There was a great celebration today in the main hall of the crescent. After 4 months of slaughter,r the Kyorl'Solenurn have ended the Nidra'Chals reign of terror. Fat lot there is to celebrate though; if the rumors are to be believed half of Chel is dead and much of the city lies in ruin. The clans have their little wars all of the time but no civilian has ever been caught in the crossfire before!_

Syphile paused, frowning, and redipped her quill before continuing.

_Ok, well maybe a few merchants who were to curious for their own good have been hit by stay mana arrows or shrapnel but nothing like this. Heinous savages the lot of them, I'm not sure what was worse; the stories of what the Nidra'Chal summoners did to the civilians when turning them into cannon fodder abominations or what the Koryl'Solnuren templar's are said to have done to stop the swarms. For a clan of Drowsuu priestesses and exorcists' to turn to using fire spells that would cover an entire city block, things must have been terrible out there. _

_I suppose Illharess is going to use what happened to the Val'Sharen to increase our clan's standin. With their armies slaughtered and their clan in disarray there's little to stop her from taking vast portions of Sharen territory for our own. Word on the Sharen is that four of Diva'Ratrikas five daughters are now tainted and the fifth, Sillice, is a traitor responsible for slaughtering the entire palace staff before her sisters arrived to stop her. Rumor says third daughter Sillice, the untainted one, is dead but I have my doubts. The eldest daughter __Snadhya'Runes has taken over the crescent while second daughter heads the clan affairs and fifth daughter plays politician in her mother's place. The fourth daughter lost her bloodline to the Nidra'Chal fighting along Sillice in the war; little has been said about her today but there is a rumor that she disappeared soon after becoming tainted during one of the final battles._

_On a more personal note, Snadhya'Runes our new headmistress has declared that all summoners must now become tainted to continue study as a measure to guard against possession by netherworld demons, as if enough of us weren't tainted already. Illharess is not going to like this. I'm set to undergo the ceremony and become tainted in a weeks' time. She'd probably see me as a failure if I quit though… such a pity - I find the whole thing intensely fascinating. It would likely be healthier if I didn't._

My task was complete; I could now play with and draw energy from other spirits. Strangely, I felt no elation at the thought. I could now strike back at the bastard who had robbed me but it just felt… wrong somehow… to take the essence of another's soul.

Perhaps it was a matter of perception though?

During my initial experiments along the cavern wall that divided the yellow souls from the blue I had found that other souls weren't the only thing one could draw strength from, the other spirits, of course, were the most obvious choice but the walls and even the void around me fairly burst with energy that could be gathered if one concentrated properly.

Based on my observations of the red spirits who were in the process of making their way to their tunnel the entire concept behind draining energy from another soul seemed to be pulling energy from a nearby victim into yourself. Armed with this concept the next logical step was to start concentrating on drawing my own aura into myself.

I had read hundreds of books and watched dozens of movies on popular magical theory before my death and a common theme in all of them was meditation. Calm your thoughts and feel for the energy. If you're having trouble, imagine the energy flowing all around you and try to pull the ripples into yourself. This one took even longer to start feeling any difference than movement had but after what felt like a day the void around me started to ripple and glow. First, a few wisps of white, then more and more until there was a corona of faint white energy appearing randomly around me but I still hadn't managed to pull more than a few wisps into myself.

'Damn spirit form.' I pulsed lightly to myself 'Everything I've ever read is based in large part on physical sensations. Or at least the concepts are explained by how things are supposed to feel as you do them.' Pulsing in irritation I began to draw the ambient energy in again. It was a little easier now and in surprise I lost my grip on the power and it faded back into my surroundings. 'Irritation,' I thought curiously 'or simply emotion itself?" Hell, how can I even feel emotion in this form?' As a mental image of myself snorting in derision passed through my mind the void before me rippled outward and I began to drift again to my surprise. 'Well, whatever works' I thought, amused.

'It's a good thing I'm not training to become a Jedi' I mused as I stretched my mind out again to pull more power into myself.

As time and trials went by I found that once I had learned to pull energy to myself it wasn't entirely necessary to consume it in order to use it. It could be pushed, pulled and wrapped around you much like a blanket or silly-putty. 'How very Avatar' I pulsed softly to myself. 'To think I'd been crafting real lessons on magic off of a cheesy kids cartoons is utterly ridiculous, but here I am aren't I?'

With a mental sigh, I brought my mind back to the present and "gazed" at the border before me where the void took on a distinctly reddish hew. The time had come, and the hunt was on.

I plunged into the barrier.

The old god Hathgrel'Dgen stirred as a faint ripple passed through the nether realms disturbing the inhabitants. Opening a massive scarlet eye he peered toward the source of the disturbance and growled; another foreign soul had pierced the veil and entered his domain of its own accord. This one seemed new somehow, it hadn't come from one of the tunnel walls like the rest but rather from the barrier between realms. It made little difference, it was here now and would not be leaving; not the way it came at least, not even he could cross the barrier into the nexus and he had been trying for countless eons.

'Pesky foreigners' he hissed rising and shaking a myriad of impotent lesser demons off his massive chintond hide, 'This one had better not be another elf, vile tasting cretins.'

The giant lobster like demon god scowled as he thought about the last time an elf had dared enter his domain, not only had her entry torn apart his plans for consuming the planet but it had taken nearly four centuries to subdue the soul and he still hadn't managed to figure out how to properly eat her. "Sour, slippery little shade," he groused remembering his last attempt. As it was he figured keeping her caged well in view of the pinhole portals her subjects insisted in continuing to open whilst she remained powerless to close them was a fitting enough punishment for causing him such a headache. At least until he figured out how to eat her… bloody hybrid aura. Mmm blood, it had been too long since he had had some real fresh blood, not since the murk-deep war on Jol'kien 5 had there been a portal large enough for him to pass through and take form.

Bringing his mind back to the present he entered the nether hub and cast forth his senses to find the interloper. Intent on finding the interloper he paid little attention to the more intelligent demons that populated the hub sparing only a glance at the bound form of the violet shade calling herself Sharress. His passage scattering the lesser demons he absentmindedly snapped up a few before his gaze fell on the intruder.

"Human…" he murmured watching the small golden form flickering in and out of focus as it battled a swiftly shrinking red specter. "Interesting." It had been nearly two millennia since he had tasted a human soul, they had largely stopped playing with the nether realms shortly after the old goat Mephisto met his defeat at the hands of one of their cleverer sorcerers.

It made no difference; he was going to eat this one anyway. As he lunged forward to consume them both there was a flash of an elven portal opening and both vanished, sucked into the vortex. Furious he shoved forth one of his smaller arms in an attempt to draw them back in before the pitiful hole closed but was unsuccessful. Roaring at his missed chance for a fresh meal Hathgrel'dgen spun around and sent a bolt of jagged dark red mana at the smug half-elven retch, trapped in her cage.

With a deep rumbling pulse he spoke to the writhing spirit. "Enough waiting Sharess, your world burns now."

Summoner Jali'dro grinned wickedly as she marched the class toward the ritual chamber. Her mistress would be pleased for today they would be tainting a clan heir. Well sort of, she smirked. With Laele'aell insane and her old friend Mel uncooperative and imprisoned, the Sarghress line of succession was rumored to be Quain'Tanas' head general and then Syphile, her prize summoning student.

She glanced down at the young darkling heir and smiled. It had been fascinating to watch over her class, the girl had a natural talent for summoning and was by far the furthest along of her non-tainted beginners. Even her tainted classmates were merely equal to the little wolf; it would be fascinating to see how she progressed after the ceremony.

Looking back up at the doors to the summoning chamber a frown suddenly crossed the instructors face. The year was almost over and she could have sworn that the girl had been scheduled for tainting months ago but something always seemed to come up. She'd suspected the girl of manipulating the situation to avoid the ceremony but she had never been able to find any evidence to support such a conclusion and had dismissed it many a time before but it somehow always struck her a suspicious. Looking down at the child you'd never suspect her of such misgivings… maybe she was just being paranoid? She had heard that it was one of the possible consequences of the tainting but up until now it just seemed to be rumor.

No matter, it was a thought for another time. "Mistress?" a voice called questioning. "Is something wrong?"

Glancing back at Syphiles bland questioning face Jali'dro smirked "Just an odd feeling, nothing more. Don't worry about it." Throwing open the doors she strode purposefully to the center of the summoning circle platform and whipped around to face the class who were glancing at her suddenly nervous at their teachers' apparent disquiet.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Assemble the crystal arrays; you know your assignments, get busy!"

Today was going to be special, she knew it.

As I plunged into the red tunnel the environment around me shifted suddenly. Behind me lay the chamber I had come from but I could no longer see the other tunnels. Shifting my gaze back to the original source of my discomfort I saw that what I had originally believed to be a single tunnel was now a vast chamber with its own myriad of tunnels branching off of it in far too many directions to possibly be held in a mere three dimensional space.

Some of the tunnels were strait while others curved around on themselves or branched out in several other directions giving the impression of a massive honeycomb. Within each tunnel swarmed beasts of all shapes, sizes and transparencies ranging from small translucent globes of energy to massive, very solid looking monsters of nightmare further down the tunnels. Fascinated by all of this it took me a while to notice that all movement in each of the tunnels had stopped and every last specter seemed to be staring at me.

Just as I noticed a pair of spirits who weren't they almost uniform red of the other beasts the stillness broke.

The entire area was immediate chaos. As most, if not all, of the spirits suddenly tried to rush me an ever increasing number broke off their charge to attack their neighbors, too distracted by the promise of fresh naive prey to pay the proper amount of attention to their mana hungry brothers- and sisters- in- arms. As the demons drew closer the chaos grew worse and I snapped out of my frozen shock to turn to the barrier between hub and nexus in an attempt to flee. It was not to be however, I had been having far too much good luck of late and Mr. Murphy, it seemed, had come to claim his due.

Panicking at my inability to return to whence I had come I stretched out wildly and grabbed at the void separating me from the fighting demons. Pulling it in frantically I put forth a sloppy effort to focus the red energy into a barrier between me and those who hadn't broken down into fighting just yet. As the seconds ticked by and the few unfettered demons pounded and clawed at the wall I had built it began to destabilize; first in little ripples disturbing the red mana that had oozed in to replace what I had taken and then wobbling and deforming at various points near the attacking demons.

**Crack!**

The larger of the undistracted demons, an almost opaque beast resembling a ring worm had chomped down on my shield and fractured it. Panicking once again I released my hold on the barrier and it exploded out ward in a massive ripple that scattered the first row of fighting spirits. The entire situation would have been hilarious in another context as in the far back of my mind it reminded me of the Greek tale about the dragons' teeth and the forming of Sparta. As it was I had little time for daydreaming I had no chance of escaping the way I had come and it had become apparent that my attempts at barriers wouldn't be of much use.

Pulling upon another of the ideas I had come up with and practiced I started pulling large sections of void together as best I could without touching the other spirits and condensed them like I had done for the barrier but this time instead of holding them for any period of time I released the stored mana in a series of miniature shockwaves that pushed a tunnel through the fighting spirits toward the strange ones at the entrance to one of the closer tunnels.

That turned out to not have been the best of ideas as I blasted my way through the fighting demons I gave many a target better than their own and came under attack once again not even halfway through the hole I had made in the swarm.

As the newly refocused demons closed in they began to try to feed off me as the first one I met had and I became nauseous once again. Holding myself as firm as I possibly could I tried to erect another smaller barrier around myself and by some accident used the mana in which I was floating as part of the construct. The feeling stopped, they were no longer draining me and my mind was clear but neither could I see. Not as such anyways, with the hasty creation of my improvised shield my field of vision had become limited to six points of red mana that extended out to a swirling red dome with utter blackness in between.

**Screech!**

Like nails on a chalkboard, or in this case teeth on a shield, the almost solid mana vibrated horridly as one of the demons resumed their attack on what they now assumed to be one of their neighbors. Loosening my grip on the shield I allowed some of the red void mana to touch me again in one quadrant and peered out of the void in that area. Most of the fighting had died down and many of the demons were darting around randomly, speeding one way and then hesitantly stopping only to rush off in another.

I sat there for a moment dumbfounded while the other demon attempted to chew away at the red sphere surrounding me. It took a long moment and a minor pang of exhaustion to shake me out of my surprise and notice that the barrier that had saved me was growing dangerously thin as the demon that resembled an angler fish attempted to gnaw away at its 'fellow'. Tentatively I reached out into the red void around me, being careful not to touch any of the nearby demons and drew in more of the red mana to reinforce my shield and replace what the fish creature had taken.

Allowing the red void to touch me again on all 8 fields I began to build up some excess mana near the fish demon in preparation to concuss it away. As I was ready to release the pent up energy I stopped momentarily, hesitating. What if the demons weren't all as dull witted as they seemed? Surely among the cattle there had to be a herder or two, would one of them recognize the technique again so soon after it was first used? I couldn't be the first to have come up with such a thing.

Refocusing the slab of built up mana into a rough cone shape I released it from the outer point inward blasting the glutton away from me almost as if I had shot it from a cannon. It seemed unharmed as it sped away; more is the pity, just stunned.

I probably would have hurt it if I'd used my own mana but I needed that to fight the thief.

Doing my best to hold the shield I turned in the direction that I 'felt' the missing piece of my aura. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it entirely but it's as if I could feel myself in another area. Discarding the notion and simply being thankful for my reprieve I set myself 'drifting' in the direction of the feeling.

As I neared the feeling the two oddly colored demons began to come into sharper focus. The first of the two to become really distinct was a massive purple octopus - like demon. Or maybe it was a spider, I really couldn't tell as the shape seemed to join with an indistinct humanoid figure. As I looked closer I saw what seemed to be a latticework of smaller, vaguely humanoid demons surrounding her connected by streams of brilliant crimson energy.

The whole situation was intriguing and I wished to study it closer but the feeling I was chasing wasn't coming from her, it was coming from the small red-orange demon near the tunnel wall to her upper right.

Reaching my destination I abruptly began to release the shield in a thick stream, slamming my opponent into the cavern wall. Rushing forward, my camouflage now gone, I latched onto the canine demon mentally and started trying to rip the piece of my aura out of it. My efforts also brought in much of the demons own mana staining mine a fiery orange. The mutt fought back and sank a set of ragged teeth into my aura and started jerking back and forth. Unable to spare excess attention for shielding or alternate attacks I pulsed forward, slamming the both of us into the wall as we continued to tussle, each trying to drain the other.

As we continued our struggle for dominance the other side of the hub rippled and a massive distorted crustacean burst out of one of the tunnels. As I began to gain the upper hand over my canine opponent I groaned internally and wondered if the situation could get any worse.

Never think such thoughts – they're dangerous.

As the massive demon surged forward to engulf us the wall before us seemed to crumble in upon itself and my demon was drawn into the vortex dragging me along with it.

Syphile sighed quietly as she went about her preparations for the ritual. Keeping her face carefully impassive she wondered if there had been anything she had missed, some opportunity she had overlooked that may have been useful for getting the ceremony postponed. Wracking her brain as she levitated another crystal into the main array, she grimaced slightly. There was nothing she could think of that would have worked, at least not without rousing suspicions.

It wasn't that she was adverse to the ceremony itself she reminded herself; a fair number of her friends were tainted and she was sure that none of them would look down on her going through with it or resisting but it was the uncertainty about her mothers' reaction that continued to give her pause. She couldn't remember Quain'Tana ever expressing direct displeasure against the tainted but a lot could change in nine months, especially during a war, and her reaction to Laele'aell becoming possessed was still sufficiently unsettling in her mind to make her worry.

"Syphile!" a voice like a whip sliced abruptly though her contemplations and Syphile looked sharply around to see her teacher looking at her expectantly. "Everything is ready, child." Professor Jali'Dro said calmly, "Take a seat in the circle. Here is your dagger."

Accepting the heavily runed knife, her neutral expression returned, Syphile turned and walked to the circle and stood in between the four floating crystals. Taking a deep breath she called upon her mana and focused it within the circle. Closing her eyes Syphile recited calmly. "*_Guardians of the void, the circle is closed. A supplicant now offers herself for power. Bound by blood, formed of mana, let the way be open._*"

Gesturing with her free hand the mana Syphile had gathered began to swirl and turn violet. Pressing the dagger to her palm she drew a line of blood across it and focused her mind on calling a weak demon.

After a few moments of heavy focus the swirling mana turned red and flashed before abruptly flaring orange and collapsing. Syphile screamed.

This ends the Prologue: Becoming.

I hope you enjoyed, please read and review.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1: Ripples

By StormFox

Credits: Authors everywhere, especially my betas, please forgive me for this, but I'm writing this as an experiment in writing OC inserts without becoming a (Marry Sue/Marty Stu). There will be several but the narrator is the main. This tale is based off various fictions, none of which I own. The primary focus fiction represented here is Drowtales, a growing, yet obscure semi-original, five year old, 14 chapter manga by Kern.

Disclaimer: Many of the changes are intentional but Little of Syphiles early life was viewed or explained so if this isn't how you imagined it kern, Sorry? 0.0!

Summary: Syphile's life took a turn for the worse when she allowed herself to become 'tainted' so she could learn summoning, but what if during the ceremony… something went wrong? What if instead of a dying demon another soul took its place. Events couldn't have turned out that different, could they?

Ssussunul; Inner temple; Shimi'lande Val'Kyorl'solenurn.

Shimi'lande surveyed the templar as he entered and made his report. The cleanup process seemed to be going well, the war had been; in large part, a success. Still she wondered how many they had missed. The Nidra'Chal fortress has been turned to gravel and the taint cleansed from the area but her visions pointed numerous surviving summoners sequestered among the Sharen and V'loz'Ress clans. They would deal with them soon enough; but first, Ro'oths' Avatar would have to be taken care of. How the child managed to retain her drow form was beyond even her knowledge. 'Perhaps the spider demon finds its generals more useful when they're able to communicate with their supplicants better' She mused.

"…o'Vadre is almost done with the north quarter of the city. The sweeps haven't turned up any portals or demons in the last nine days so we're fairly sure the Nidra'Chal presence is gone from the area." The templar bowed as he finished his report. "Do you have any further orders my lady? …Lady Shimi'Lande! What is it?"

Shimi'Lande had suddenly doubled over groaning and holding her head as a particularly intense vision broke over her. Barely noticing as the templar shouted for healers Shimi drew in a series of deep breaths and tried to focus through the whirl of images and feelings that clamored for her attention. Something was changing, the scales had been upset and the future was now in flux. What had done this? What could possibly frighten them this much? Gritting her teeth she rammed her way through the interference in her head and grabbed a hold of the first image to assault her senses.

Her first impression was of a red backdrop and a lone figure clad in armor. There were no discerning marks on the armor but she could tell that it was a female darkling, about two decades in age. The armor and sword were simple and made of a black metal common among the upper class mercenaries of the underworld. The figures head was bowed and lines of jagged blue-white energy danced along her armor and sword. As the figure looked up her eyes found Shimi'Lande and the image became suddenly clearer.

As the shadows behind the figure sharpened and came into focus Shimi gasped. Two figures faced each other, scorching gazes locked in a battle of wills. The first was Elven in form with skin of deepest night, classical features and four burning eyes of deepest indigo while the second larger figure, dark red in color, resembled a demonic twisting of the Emberi shellfish known as the lobster. It was the elder demon god Hathgrel.

But why would Sharess fight an elder god over a single champion? What made the child special? And why had none of her visions included her before now? There were far too many questions and much too few answers. As the Kyorl'Solenurn Illharess attempted to refocus on the primary focus of her vision it was abruptly shattered to be replaced with a pair of eyes.

The eyes were common enough among the Drow, purple with a dull red glow in the pupil. These eyes were young as well, and focused, but even so they still held far too many regrets for one their age. Suddenly the eyes widened in shock and the Kyorl matriarch heard a piercing scream as the eyes closed momentarily. When they opened again the pupil was filled with a brilliant orange light. As she continued to watch the pupils elongated and the iris turned orange to match the fading brilliance at their center.

The world returned to Shimi suddenly as she collapsed to the floor shuddering and gasping. Looking up she saw the room had filled with wardens, templar's and priestesses all looking at her with deep concern in their eyes. Well… the ones that could be seen that was as many of their eyes were covered by bands of cloth. "Illharess, what is it? What have you seen?" a soft voice before her asked. Looking up into the eyes of Ron'Nae, a blade and sorcerer from the order or the dual eyes, she drew a shuddering breath and replied.

"Hathgrel seeks his return. It seems the war of the moons was not enough for him." Standing shakily she addressed the gathered clans-members. "It would seem that Ro'oths attack these past years was just the beginning. Little was clear but the vision centered on a young warrior, many of the details were uncertain but she may be tainted. Tell your wardens and templars to be on the watch for a darkling with orange eyes and pupils shaped like the holy eye." Teetering forward she was caught and steadied by Life binder Jaa'li.

"You should rest, Illharess. The vision was quite intense and you will need to regain your strength." Leading her out of the central chamber and into Shimi's own personal quarters and lay her down on the bed. "Here, drink these." She said handing the Kyorl leader a pair of small glass vials. "These should ease the head pain and speed the return of your mana, but I don't want to see you out of this bed before you're recovered, Illharess, healers orders." Shimi'Lande smiled at the scowling healer and calmly drained the potions.

"I'll do my best, Jaa'Li, I always do."

Jali'Dro stood by a bed in the Orthorbbae infirmary and stared down at its occupant her mind whirling. What could have gone wrong? How had the exorcism failed? Success rate for cleansing a demon from a student's aura within hours of possession was unbelievably high but nothing had worked. All of the ceremonies had proven useless and the priestesses had been at a complete loss for how to remove the invader. It hadn't even spread itself thought the girls aura yet and still the nether being had been completely untouchable, like a young oiled tiktiki.

It hadn't helped that few enough of the priestesses had been able to touch the girl, what with her new demon attacking any tainted to touch her skin with arcs of jagged blue-white energy. Trying to move her with metal implements was even worse as the energy merrily ran up their length and set the tainted handlers to twitching uncontrollably all the same. Eventually she had been wrapped in a silken sheet by headmaster from spire Davya and carried by his untainted colleagues to the infirmary.

The expression on Headmaster Kelnoz's face when he looked at her had been infuriating but he did at least seem concerned over the wellbeing of his families charge. The smug bastard, it was such a pity that Sarv'swati had failed to take over the headmasters council. Useless, meddling male.

Sighing she gazed down at her changed student, still yet to awaken from the ceremony in the tainting chamber. For a child from a house of commoners she was going to be a pretty one, now she wasn't so sure. Syphiles hair had turned a brilliant silky orange color to match the Vloz'Rezz and though it was hidden beneath the beds sheets her spine had elongated to form a tail with the same fur covering it as well. Hidden among her now orange hair were her ears which had also changed, becoming wider, shorter and covered in the same orange fur.

"Just like a feral…" Jali'Dro sighed. "I wonder if her life has been shortened as well." She snorted at the thought. The child's life was likely to be short in the first place with the newly minted **Val**'Sarghress as family. She did still have her mana though, and plenty of it; especially now. Mana was life and so the girl would probably be able to whether the ages like the rest of her race but she had to survive first. Still, while she held few enough feelings for any of her students she was at loathe to lose her most promising student in a century to a simple accident.

Summoning Master Jali'Dro left the room in a whirl of robes ignoring those she passed. Headmistress Snadhya'runes needed to know the full details of the event; if she did she would be sure to keep the girl her for study despite the wishes of the Sarghress. She'd likely take joy in the act itself, just to spite them. The Sharen had lost a great deal of the City to the Sarghress wolves whom the citizens treated like saviors. They would help; she was sure of it...

Devya Headmaster Kel'Noz Val'Sarghress watched as Summoning Master Jali'dro Vel'Sulisin'Rune swept out of the crescent infirmary, her dark robes billowing behind her. He often wondered if she did that just to impress people. As one of his sister's former friends, he knew a fair deal about the summoning instructor and she had always come off as thoughtful and distant to him. Not unkind, but then that was before she became tainted. He sighed, recognizing her path - running off to her headmaster to solve her problems like a good little automaton.

Kel'Noz shook his head as he entered his adopted sisters' room. It was a separate part of the infirmary reserved for contagious cases and required a pair of sliding doors and air filter to enter. Contagious, HA! No more so that those damn demons the priestesses kept insisting on summoning.

Just looking down on her you wouldn't know that Syphile had changed; she slept so peacefully curled up in the hospital bed, her hair spread out around her like a halo. The hair wasn't to unusual, many Drow dyed theirs, and while orange was typically the color associated with the Vloz'Ress outcasts, it could always be dyed again. The tail, while harder to explain was also simple enough to hide under the skirts and armor their clan always insisted on, but the ears troubled him. There were all sorts of head-dresses, helmets and hair styles that could render the problem obsolete, but what if someone got to close? They could be explained away as high sorcery but that often required demonstrations and Syphile had never been strong with illusionary magic.

Pushing his concerns aside he focused on the larger problem. Getting her out of Orthorbbae before Jali'Dro or Snadhya'Runes came back and started sniffing around; the last thing anyone needed was to become one on Snadhya's test subjects.

Leaving the room the head of Davya spire proceeded to the back of the infirmary and into the healers' offices. Seeing their surprised and calculating stares Kel'Noz turned to the head healer and bowed deeply. "Mistress Bek'ti Jaal'Darya, Honorable healers" he began straightening back up "My Illharess wishes that I return to the citadel immediately along with my clan sister, your patient Syphile. Would you discharge her to me?"

Nodding once head healer Bek'ti walked to the desk and retrieved Syphiles School Key-rune necklace and handed it to Kel'Noz without saying a word. Bowing again, the Davya headmaster left the room and returned to his charge. Reaching into his voluminous robes he withdrew four violet crystals whose shape resembled corners to a picture frame. Placing them together on the floor to form a square he began to channel mana into them. Immediately all four began to glow and, as promised, formed a solid magical tray between them. He had never really given excessive thought to the dwarves but he had to hand it to the Kal'Yantra and their friends, they made some of the damnedest things. Raising the small floating square he removed his hand from it and watched it hover there waiting. Smiling he pulled the crystals apart and watched as they drew upon his mana to expand the size of the platform.

Still deep in contemplating the board, Kel'Noz turned around and lifted Syphile onto it noticing that it again increased the draw on his mana. It wasn't much and he could probably support the thing the entire way home but it was still something to think about.

Draping a sheet over Syphile and the mana board, Kel'Noz proceeded out of the crescent glad that classes were still in session and the refugees had cleared out of the cavern. Seeing Syphiles Kal'Yantra friend lurking in the shadows of the gateway he smiled and waved to her. He would remember Mal'Ama Kal'Yantra he thought as he climbed onto his riding wolf Kiba; she had been the one to offer a way to transport the still unconscious Syphile in the first place.

The 'Mana Board' Syphile was resting on had been originally developed by a Durgar partner of one of the Kal'Yantra heirs 20 years ago as a means to create a sort of collective shield for battle situations. While successful in its original purpose the idea had sadly never caught on as it had the unfortunate effect of blocking outgoing spells as well as incoming. Magni's creation was now seeing its primary use as large holding tanks in the southern Chel mana-forges. Mal had been the one to suggest their use a carryalls but their use wouldn't likely catch on for several decades as they required a constant drain on one's reserves to operate.

Settling Syphiles belongings into his wolf's saddle bags, Kel'Noz set off for home.

Syphile was having a truly strange dream.

She was in the Val'beldrobaen throne room holding court with her generals, house leaders and business partners; except the room was pink, and the assembly was made up of tiktiki, young ferals and midgets with enormous eyes. The table had been replaced with the shell of a massive rust colored lobster and Sharess was bounding around the room playing jester. To complete the surreal picture there was a massive orange dog with two tails sitting in _her_ throne and cackling insanely all the while, insisting he was a *_human_*, whatever that was.

Syphile wasn't particularly concerned though, she was sure that this couldn't be the strangest of her dreams and once she woke up she felt certain she would forget the whole thing. The sensation of floating around the court room was nice though, she would miss that.

Then the dream shifted slightly. The doors to the room opened for a unicorn with a silver coat, a golden mane and glowering yellow eyes. On its back sat a small drider that only had three eyes. Its torso closely resembled her adoptive elder sister Mel'Arnach and the tips of its hair were dyed purple. Looking up at where Syphile was happily floating near the ceiling the creature pouted and called out.

"Where did you put Fluffy?!"

Hearing a yelp beside him Kel'Noz turned to see Syphile sit up sharply on the board and look around wildly. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up," the Davya headmaster said soothingly, placing a hand on the young girls shoulder. "Here," he said, unclipping one of the saddlebags and handing it to her "You should change into some clean robes; you've been unconscious for a little over a week." Noticing her stare he smiled sadly and explained. "You collapsed during a tainting ritual and your aura started attacking those who tried to move you. Your teacher refused to give me any pertinent details but I feel it would be safe to assume the ritual was for you?"

Eyes wide in alarm Syphile only nodded. "Do you have any idea what might have gone wrong?" Kel'Noz asked softly. "From what I understand you used some rather unusual sorcery while you were unconscious," he remarked - smirking at the last part.

"Here" he said using a glowing fist to punch the stone floor to the right of the path. As a set of walls and a door rose from the stone Syphile hopped off the floating board and groaned and the stiffness in her legs. Walking over to the makeshift changing room she quickly changed cloths. Returning Syphile was wearing a pair of loose black silk pants a dark red tunic also of spider silk and a long grey cloak that opened in the front and billowed out behind her as she walked.

Smiling Kel'Noz gestured at the blanket Syphile had been sleeping under and it whipped into the air folding itself into the now empty saddlebag. As Kel'Noz collapsed the mana board Syphile looked at him curiously. Noticing her stare he explained that one of her friends, an older girl from the Kal'Yantra clan had offered its use to him.

Their journey continued in silence; Syphile now sitting in front of her elder pseudo-brother, until they reached the gates of the Sarghress fortress.

Quain'Tana Val'Sarghress, Illharess of the Sarghress clan slouched in her throne and lowered her face into her left hand. It had been an incredibly long week and she was more than ready to curl up in bed with a large steaming bottle of expensive over-world whiskey. It was such a pity the fighting was over as there would be no more swarms or raids to fend off as an escape from politics.

How had things gotten this truly twisted? Becoming barren, losing Laele'Aell to a demon and an emissary from the Kyorl'Solenurn comes nosing around not to mention whispers of a disaster in the Orthrobbae summoning classes. Long have I held the opinion that you make your own luck but recently I'm beginning to wonder if Sharess hates us. So much in less than a decade.

Hearing the doors to the throne room open Quain'Tana parted her fingers and gazed tiredly at the new arrivals - her son and a young woman in Sarghress robes and brilliant orange hair. "Kel'Noz," she said loudly allowing her forehead to lower back into her palm "while you are fully free to take mates from any of the clans it's not particularly prudent to pick one up from the Vloz'Ress when I send you orders to return with your sister in tow, and especially this close to the end of the Nidra'Chal debacle."

Spreading her fingers again to reveal a single eye she watched her son bow and smile slightly. "I'm sure Syphile appreciates the compliment mother, it's good to know you're feeling well enough to make jokes." Standing up sharply at her sons words Quain'Tana spoke in a booming voice.

"T**he rest of you, OUT! And shut the door behind you!**" Turning to face her son, she spoke again in a low growling voice. "Is this what you were talking about when you said there had been a disaster with the summoning class? You only wrote that Syphile had been hurt and was unconscious_. Explain yourself Kel_."

Looking down at Syphile, Kel'Noz sighed and began to speak. "Having run out of plausible distractions to avoid the situation Syphile was going in for her tainting ceremony."

"Tainting ceremony?" Quain interrupted her voice dangerous.

"Yes," he continued grimacing "Tainting ceremony. If you remember I wrote you when Snadhya'Runes became headmistress a few months ago; she made tainting a requirement for those taking summoning classes." Ignoring Quains frosty stare he continued grimacing again. "Syphile became wounded during the ceremony and caused quite a stir in the process." He finished, still avoiding his mothers glare.

"Injured?" she said looking back to the girl, Syphile she reminded herself, standing behind her son. "She appears unharmed, though her stare seems vacant, **Syphile!**"

"Hmm?" Came the distracted reply. Kel'Noz sighed as Quains gaze darkened. "Oh, I'm sorry you were saying?" she asked with a soft smile.

Quickly speaking up to cut his mother off Kel'Noz interrupted "She's been in a coma for the past nine days mother, It may not be entirely prudent to question her now."

Her eye twitching Quain spoke softly "Tell. Me. Everything."

"Well, despite how things may appear she isn't actually possessed. Not in the traditional sense at the very least." As he paused to gather his thoughts Quain spoke up.

"Exactly how do you mean 'not in the traditional sense'? What other sense is there?"

"Well, normally when a demon possesses a mana bearing creature their aura changes. With a light tainting it can turn any number of shades of purple or if the tainting is strong a red hue will be dominant. With a full possession their aura would become completely red, having been consumed by the demons own aura and with most of the typically summoned demons the physical structure of the infected Drow will change to match what the demon resembled in the nether realms. In Syphiles case though things seem… well it's rather unprecedented really."

"Unprecedented how…" she asked, now circling Syphile like a direwolf gauging its prey.

"Well, from what I gathered interrogating her classmate and friend from the Nal'Sarkoth clan Syphile had almost completed the ritual when her summoning portal suddenly flared orange and exploded knocking her unconscious. The demon she summoned entered her via the wound on her palm and sealed the cut behind it like normal but her aura didn't change. Her body however… there are small things; most of them not particularly noticeable."

"The ears obviously, and the eyes." Quain'Tana murmured, nodding and continuing to prowl. "What else?"

"Her hair color is also reported to be a change wrought during the ceremony and… she also has a tail," he said haltingly. "It's easily hidden" Kel'Noz continued in a rush "Under the normal robes or armor most drow ware it wouldn't even be noticed unless she wished it." Glaring at her son Quain'Tana slumped back into her throne.

"And her mind?"

Looking pensive, the Davya headmaster responded slowly "So far as the healers could tell there was no change in her mind, there is little enough change in any tainting that does not become a full possession...but, I would have to observe her for a while to be sure. If nothing else, I'd love to study the other side effect of the event."

Raising an eyebrow, the Sarghress queen spoke again, finally seeming interested "Yes, you did say she caused a bit of a commotion. As I remember that was how the situation came to your attention in the first place. What happened? You mentioned sorcery."

"Quite" Kel'Noz replied brightening visibly "After she fell unconscious the teacher tried immediately to wake her and see if she was all right. Standard procedure, you understand. What was amazing was what happened when she touched Syphiles skin. According to the students anyone who touched her were hit by an unknown form of elemental sorcery. I was touched by it myself and have been attempting to understand the inherent magic's ever since. It resembles jagged lines of concentrated mana and feels much like Mels' spiders are crawling over your skin where the arcs move. What was truly surprising is that the sorcery seemed to differentiate between Drowolath and Ver'Drowendar. Ver'Drowendar who touched her felt pain and their muscles twitched uncontrollably where the sparks touched them. It was all quite fascinating."

"I'm sure it is Kel, but a power that only affects… what is that noise?" Kel'Noz stepped aside to look at Syphiles who was humming an unusual tune, her eyes closed. "Girl, pay attention! And what are you humming?"

"Oh," Syphile said "He he...sorry about that." Syphile grinned and rubbed the back of her head; an unusual gesture, even for her.

"No, you obviously felt the need to sing despite the situation, child. Sing; loud enough for us to hear."

Looking even more nervous Syphile cleared her throat and began again.

"*Axes flash, broadswords swing*  
*Shining armors' piercing ring*  
*Horses run with polished shield*  
*Fight those bastards 'til they yield *

*Midnight mare, blood red roan*  
*Fight to keep this land your own*  
*Sound the horn and call the cry*  
*How many of them can we make die? *

*Follow orders as you're told*  
*Make their yellow blood run cold*  
*Fight until you die or drop*  
*A force like ours is hard to stop *

*Close your mind to stress and pain*  
*Fight 'til you're no longer sane*  
*Let not one damn cur pass by*  
*How many of them can we make die? *

*Guard your women and children well*  
*Send these bastards back to Hell*  
*We'll teach them the ways of war*  
*And they won't come here anymore *

*Use your shield and use your head*  
*Fight 'til everyone is dead*  
*Raise the flag up to the sky*  
*How many of them can we make die? *

*Dawn has broke, the time has come*  
*Move your feet to the marching drum*  
*We'll win the war and pay the toll*  
*Fight as one in heart and soul *

*Midnight mare and blood red roan*  
*Fight to keep this land your own*  
*Sound the horn and call the cry*  
*How many of them can we make die? *

*Axes flash, broadswords swing*  
*Shining armors' piercing ring*  
*Horses run with polished shield*  
*Fight those bastards 'til they yield *

*Midnight mare and blood red roan*  
*Fight to keep this land your own*  
*Sound the horn and call the cry*  
*How many of them can we make die?*  
*How many of them can we make die?*  
*How many of them can we make die?*"

At the end if the song that could be heard was stunned silence. Speaking in a much softer voice than before Quain spoke "Where did you learn the Emberi marching song, daughter?"

Tilting her head in question the fourteen year old heiress replied. "No idea, I've never heard it before, it was just going through my head and had a good beat." She rubbed her hand nervously and spoke again. "You aren't mad are you?"

Looking at his mother Kel'Noz asked "What was the name you gave the Halmes battalions? The ones we used to take care of the summoners who tried to storm our sections of the city?"

"War Meat." Quain said grinning, "Congratulations Syphile, All of my daughters go through military service for the clan. Until further notice you've just been enlisted in the War Meat Marines. And don't ask me what marines means, it's something the Halmes mercenaries call themselves."

"But!"

As Syphiles exclamation left her lips Quains gaze turned suddenly frosty. "But? We just fought a war against the tainted, child, the only one of their demons to cross our gates and live sits behind my throne chained to a massive block of dark-iron. Would you rather be placed in the care of our latest Acquisition? She came to us a few weeks ago and she has a _great_ appreciation of the tainted. **SIL'LICE!** I know you're listening, come down from there NOW!"

There was a loud thump behind Syphile and a tall woman in ice blue armor and a Sarghress tabard came limping from a spot beneath one of the ventilation shafts near the top of the hall. There was a massive, if fading, burn mark across the top of her head and her hair had been cut short and held no dye, a sign of dishonor. "This is Sil'Lice Val'Sarghress, I know what you may have heard about her but, true or not, she is now one of our clan." Quain'Tanas smile shifted into a subtle leer "An honorary daughter." She said looking directly into the older woman's eyes a challenge evident in her gaze "She has kindly given us a respectable amount of intelligence on the Sharen holdings and their remaining military forces and now heads our torture and interrogation department."

Returning her gaze to Syphile she continued. "For now you will have the rest of the month to rest as if you were on break for Orthorbbae. At the end of the month you will meet the War Meat Marines for morning and evening training, at mid day you will report to Sillice's chambers for continued magic lessons. If he is willing Kel'Noz will tutor you while he is on break. Until I find an opportunity for you to prove yourself worthy of your position those are your orders. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Illharess," Syphile said quietly, her head bowed. As she walked out of the throne room, Syphile began to cry.

Syphile collapsed on to her bed, silent tears flowing into her pillow. IT WASN'T FAIR! Removed from school, enlisted in an army of former slaves and a mutated freak to boot, she thought miserably, not even noticing the strange phrase she had used in her head. Her Illharess thought her a pathetic failure. She wasn't a failure; she had proven as much this last year. You didn't get to be the favorite student of their emotionless summoning mistress without some serious talent. She wasn't strong or fast like the warrior queen but she was a powerful and intelligent sorceress,.. for her age. at least.

It was just SO UNFAIR!!!

Her face buried in her pillow Syphile cried herself to sleep, wallowing deeply in self pity. It was slightly irrational and would pass in time she knew but at the moment she just couldn't help it. Slipping into her dreams Syphile hoped to find some respite and for a while she did; dreaming of white clouds, blue skies and a silver moon, a place where everything was so much simpler and knowledge was everywhere, just waiting for her to reach out and seize it. Suddenly the pleasant silence of the pleasantly alien landscape was shattered when a voice dripping with venom interrupted her halfway through a book.

"Enjoying yourself?" the voice asked from over her shoulder. Whipping around she saw what she at first assumed was a feral. After staring wide-eyed at the figure who seemed to be speaking to her despite being in a dream, she began to notice a number of differences in the creature. Most ferals appeared to be little different from their non sentient four-legged cousins; they were simply able to stand on their hind legs and walk more naturally than on all fours. This was of course primarily due to abnormalities in their pelvis and the fact that their knees faced forward like an Elf's rather than behind like most animals.

Her observer however seemed to be much more elven in appearance, or perhaps human? He; or perhaps she, was much too short to be a mature elf. Ignoring that - he had a very human face and seemed, if lean, to be quite well muscled. He was wearing a set of white pants, white tunic, red belt and expensive looking _leather_ boots. He was also covered in orange fur with white over the lower face and disappearing into the tunic. He had the same ears she now sported and the tail as well, though his tail and inner ears bore white fur instead of orange like hers.

"_**Well?**_" came the whip like voice again and she saw that his four primary canines were extended as well, much further even than a drows own prominent fangs.

She quailed as he stepped forward and snatched the book from her before answering, her voice full of steel she hadn't expected to be there. "Yes I was actually. How is it that you are in my dream, unless you're a part of it? My sub-conscious come to berate me like my bitch of a foster mother?"

The figure laughed mightily and when his gaze returned it was softer than before. "Yes, I saw that. Nice going singing my song to her. That was hilarious. Could you concentrate on the face she made? …I'd like to _frame_ it," he finished, a vicious grin on his face.

Frame it, she thought. How could you frame a memory she pondered. Perhaps you could levitate some dyes onto a silk canvas and think of the image, but that wouldn't really be framing the memory itself, it would be more of a memento.

"That it would be, kid. But I was thinking more along the lines of you thinking hard enough on the memory for me to find it in your library; or mind, as it were." Seeing her shocked expression the figure laughed again and turned a smirk on her. "Yes, I can hear what you're thinking, brat. You're the one who's in my head, remember? What? You didn't know? These 'books' you've been so happily reading are my knowledge and experiences. I'd thank you to keep your pointy grey ears out of them, thank you very much. Unless you'd like me to ransack your mind while you're watching?"

Seeing her wide eyed denial he held out his clawed hand grinning. "I suppose this is what I get for asking for an adventure as I died. Since we seem to be stuck with each other, the name's _____ Nice to meet you."

"You think I was too harsh on her don't you?" The Sarghress Illharess murmured feeling her son's disapproving gaze focused on her as she stared at the door her latest disappointment had left through.

"I certainly don't" the ice summoner spat, forming a chair out of the room's moisture. "Pathetic little demon spawn. Were you serious about me continuing her education as a spell weaver? Are you sure I can't just play with her?"

"Yes," The stone mage said, creating his own chair out of the floor and turning his glare on his counterpart "I do think you're being too harsh. Both of you," he added, showing a rare bit of forcefulness. "Despite what you'd like to believe _little sister,_ Syphile is neither tainted nor possessed; not by a demon in any case. As to your displeasure with her mother - are you more distressed that she went through with it in the first place, or the fact that she failed to do it properly?"

Quain'Tana only glared at him. After a moment she bowed her head and let out a massive sigh. "Both really, this may only be her first failure, but even you must see that it was in quite a spectacular fashion."

"True, it was supposed to be one of the simpler nether summons but from what I understand only the portal is simple, holding portals open yet impassable while you search entire worlds for a suitable spirit is another thing entirely. It's part of why they treat the ceremony like a test for intermediate summoners. Teachers are often said to end up helping their students maintain the window and sometimes even have to guide them to appropriate nether zones. While she summoned something that not only _wasn't_ a demon" he paused to glare at Sil'Lice, before returning to lecture mode "but apparently attacks them on sight is either an amazing accomplishment that could open an entire new field in the art or an incredible stroke of luck. Good or bad, take your pick."

"_F__**as**__cinating_ as this undoubtedly is to you" Silllice drawled "I really don't see your point. She's possessed and you know it. Furthermore, whatever breed of demon it is, it's deceptive and dangerous. I think she should be my personal project… _urk!_"

"Enough, both of you" Quain'tata said removing her hand from Sillices throat and settling back in her chair. "Whatever the circumstances, whatever the outcome, she still willingly submitted herself to being tainted. I sent her to learn beast summoning, wolves and dragons, not nether demons. She still failed me. Twice."

"Return to your duties, Silllice, and Son? Get some rest, you'll need it."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S GONE?" the furious shriek emanating from the healers ward of Orthorbbae echoed across the crescent and could be heard in the lower levels of the nearest of the eight towers. Snadhya'Runes was furious. No, she wasn't furious, she was far beyond that; blood would rain if the situation was not rectified, the underworlds lack of the clouds be damned. "You should have brought this to my attention when the matter first arose, Jali'Dro. This is unacceptable. We don't even have any idea how the event occurred now. Was it a flaw in the summoning; did the brat know where to look for a different type of soul; was the soul in the wrong realm and how did it even get there? Thousands of questions; millions of tests, ALL OF THEM LOST BECAUSE YOU WERE INCOMPETANT!"

Closing her eyes and breathing heavily Snadhya made an attempt to reign in her fury before it consumed her and made the situation worse. Unsuccessful she opened them again and glared around the room balefully. The healers and summoning teacher were pressed against the walls and ceiling, most of them several feet from the ground, their equipment smashed and broken. It had been centuries since she had let her anger get the better of her control like that.

Her sudden increase in annoyance caused several of the entrapped staff to begin choking under the pressure of her mana and she put forth another effort to reign herself in. As the raging maelstrom of pressure sorcery receded and the medical staff fell to the ground the Orthorbbae headmistress began plotting. This would need to be handled delicately; even if Quain rejected the girl she would happily keep her even at the risk of a direct conflict with the remaining Sharen forces if it meant it would cause her and her sisters distress. Come to think of it the… woman… would probably welcome a chance to gain a modicum of revenge against the Sharen for the wound Sarv'Swati had given her four years ago; it was a thought that still made her smile and likely would for decades to come.

Not that she hadn't already gained too much - In the months since the end of the war the Sarghress had been sweeping through the city, killing her soldiers, looting Sharen guard stations and winning the heart of the remainder of the wretched commoners. It was enough to make her vomit. 42 blocks lost in a matter of days and there was little enough chance that even with the upgraded armor and tainted troops that they'd be able to stand against the entire might of the 12 houses of the mercenary queen. Not anymore… not yet.

"It seems I will need to take a direct hand in this." The leader of the Sharen spoke, her voice dangerous. "The professor will make a full report of her observations from the ceremony and the past nine days as well, I shall decide how to deal with her later. The healers will repair the room and replace their equipment. They are free to use the school trust, don't let me hear of you abusing this privilege." Sweeping off towards the door Snadhya paused before leaving the room and glanced back at the rooms' occupants, stunned by their good luck.

"Pray." She sent back to them and swept out of the room. It was time to put their connections with the Vloz'Ress to good use.

Syphile raised her hand, halfway to touching the strange figures own and paused, a curious expression on her face. Looking up into the figures face and then back to her hand, not quite understanding what it was wanting she haltingly asked for an explanation. "Uh, what exactly are you wanting and why do I feel the urge to hold your hand, I don't understand."

Rolling his eyes the figure replied smirking "The gesture is a greeting and was originally formed as a sign of respect. You offer your right hand to another and you are essentially leaving yourself vulnerable. You are showing them that you have no weapon in your hand and that it is far from one you do have. If they return the gesture it was meant to be a sign that you felt comfortable enough with them to do the same. Now days it's a simple greeting that few ever think over; it's a human thing. You're probably feeling compelled to do it because you've been gallivanting around in my head. I'm curious though, why is your mind organized like a library? Admittedly this is the first mind I've ever viewed but it's still curious."

"…Oh." she said quickly taking the strangers hand and shaking it firmly before continuing. "I suppose I'd represent my mind as a library because the library at school is the one place I've ever felt truly comfortable. I guess. What did you say you were called though? I couldn't hear anything when you said your name."

"Really? That's odd, my names is _____; how about then?"

"Nothing, your mouth moves but nothing comes out." Syphile replied shaking her head.

"Huh, well what would you call me?" the stranger asked raising an eyebrow.

Syphile stared at the stranger, momentarily struck dumb by the casualness of the question. The… creature… claimed to be a dead human turned feral mana being and seemed largely unperturbed by being sealed inside the body of a child who was not only of an entirely different race but of the opposite gender as well; and yet the only thing that had sparked anger in it was an unavoidable invasion of its nonexistent privacy. Closing her mouth briefly she gathered her wits and replied "I'd call you insane dog boy, I suppose you heard why just now?"

Snorting; the stranger replied by once again raising an eyebrow, as if to say 'duh'.

"Alright, how about red feral?" Syphile asked receiving a glare in return. "Fuzzy." a raised eyebrow. "Rust fang. Overbite. Cub. Moon dancer. Silky. Death howl, Jitters, maniac, Mok'nathal, Ariel."

"Please Odin say that came out of your head and not mine." The figure whined grabbing his skull in mock agony. Syphile shot him a nasty look and shot a reply back.

"My head, you idiot, I though since you weren't responding to boys names you might like a girls better. Why, what does Ariel mean to you?"

"Where I come from Ariel is a young mermaid, a sort of fish person similar to what you call a feral, she's about 16 years old, naïve as they come and irrationally obsessed with a person of another species that has made a habit of hunting her race. She makes a deal with a demon in which she sacrifices her immortality in order to be with him and becomes heartbroken when he falls for someone else. Both the original story and the revised version created by the children's entertainment industry are so sweet they're sickening."

"Uh huh... Ok, how about that name you mentioned when you were making fun of me? Odin."

Suddenly looking embarrassed the figure scratched the back of its head and replied. "I wouldn't presume to take such a name. I'm not that good."

Cocking her head to the side, instantly curious, Syphile asked the obvious question. "Why not? What's so special about that name?"

"Well for starters he's the king of the gods, being named after him is pretty big."

Syphile was momentarily dumbstruck and responded without thinking. "Your gods are ruled by a male? No wonder you're a slave race!" The figure before her blurred before her eyes and Syphile suddenly found herself awake in her bedroom wracked in pain as blue white sparks danced across her body from a point on the side of her jaw. As the attack subsided she sat up in bed rubbing her jaw and cursing.

Looking up she once again saw the source of her discomfort. Facing her, hackles raised and sitting on air was a transparent figure or a large orange and white wolf with two tails and sparks dancing all over his fur. "So it would seem that I can see you when I'm awake as well" she grumbled still rubbing her jaw. "I'm not going to get any rest from you am I?"

**Not if you keep insulting peoples gods you won't**. The reply was silent but she heard it none the less. **Do you see me insulting yours? No. Now if we could get on with finding something to call me? Or do you intend to insult me again?**

"How about butthole?" she asked petulantly. Sighing Syphile tried to wipe the anger from her voice. "Khul'Shalkrum."

Sitting back on its haunches the dog tilted its head and looked at her quizzically. "**What does it mean?"** was the only reply.

"It's a phrase in the old tongue meaning living weapon. Not many still speak it and to those who do it will appreciate it as a sort of an inside joke; even more so for us as you openly profess to being dead. "

**I can live with that, Khul'Shalkrum Thorson. Try to get some rest kid, it looks like you're going to need it soon enough. And do try to stay out of my memories.**

Rolling her eyes at the revised name Syphile set her head back down on the pillow and drifted off once more.

This ends Chapter 1: Ripples.

I hope you enjoyed, please PM me some reviews.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2: Rest

By StormFox

Credits: Authors everywhere, especially my betas, please forgive me for this, but I'm writing this as an experiment in writing OC inserts without becoming a (Marry Sue/Marty Stu). There will be several but the narrator is the main. This tale is based off various fictions, none of which I own. The primary focus fiction represented here is Drowtales, a growing, yet obscure semi-original, five year old, 14 chapter manga by Kern.

Disclaimer: Many of the changes are intentional but Little of Syphiles early life was viewed or explained so if this isn't how you imagined it kern, Sorry? 0.0!

Summary: Syphile's life took a turn for the worse when she allowed herself to become 'tainted' so she could learn summoning, but what if during the ceremony… something went wrong? What if instead of a dying demon another soul took its place. Events couldn't have turned out that different, could they?

Warden General Kyo'varde of the Order of the Twin Eyes looked up from her desk as a young blade walked into the room. The young brunette bowed deeply waiting for her approval. "Rise, blade. What do you have to report?" she asked simply.

"I was sent by our outpost in the border city of Felde, ma'am. The justicators squads there have been unable to find anyone matching the descriptions given; I also have here the monthly report on tainted activity in the city." Taking the scroll from the blade runner Kyo'varde broke the seal with a flash of mana and unrolled the encrypted message. Scanning the report she sighed; while she understood the use of encryption for securing communications she often found it a nuisance as so few documents were ever intercepted, let alone important ones.

According to the report there were 87 tainted currently in the city, most of them in a supply group from the rapidly growing Vloz'Ress heretics. The justicators also reported that they had managed to quietly purge five tainted business leaders from the top of the cities society without being implicated in their deaths. She would have to send a purifier squad over to ambush the caravan, if she could get the dwarves' help maybe she could get some cannons as well.

Hmm… as repulsive as the diminutive creatures were they were at least untaintable and their cannons were quite useful for killing larger numbers of demon spawn. The problem was to have enough to really make it worth the effort was difficult; the dwarves had become even more paranoid of late, if such a thing was possible, and refused to hire out groups larger than a dozen ambushers at a time. Not only that, the standard cannons were the only thing they were willing to rent out to 'the long ears'. It was such a pity that mana was incapable of recreating some of their more useful artifacts. Their jagged-light staves had been pure genius, making even the best armor ineffectual. " Which is part of the reason they still had some clear air cities, "she reminded herself.

Smiling slightly she thanked the messenger and asked if he had anything else to report. To her surprise he nodded his head hesitantly. "Speak."

"It is little more than rumor but I came across a group of students from Orthorbbae on my way here, there seems to have been an unusual disturbance recently in the summoning classes there. From what I managed to hear a portal exploded. One of the students became heavily tainted and was soon after removed from the school by her clan. It could have nothing to do with your search but it would likely be prudent to look into the matter anyways. Strong tainting rarely turns out favorably, I can't figure how the Sharen think they'll get away with it. I'm sorry m'lady - you asked for facts, not opinions." The blade bowed deeply again and Kyo'varde dismissed him, thinking deeply.

Reaching a decision, the leader of the heretic hunters put away her work and stood up. This would need to be investigated carefully and she knew just the people to talk to.

Sene'kha stood in her study near the top of the newly rebuilt Vloz'Ress fortress thinking. There were always extra demons who escaped into the underworld when one opened a portal but one there had been one recently that had been of particular interest. This demon was small, almost unnoticeable, and as far as she had been able to tell it had been completely unimportant.

What it had been was a messenger. It had headed directly for Kharla'Gen and as soon as it entered her aura she had gone wild. Moving almost at random she had sped around her room gouging marks into the walls. By the time she was done all six walls and the ceiling was covered with a strange script her scholars had only begun to translate and the floor was covered knee deep in rubble. The message seemed to be some type of warning so far but throughout the message two names kept being repeated - Ro'oth and Hathgrel'dgen. She knew who Ro'oth was but the other name filled her with an unshakable feeling of dread, something she had not felt for centuries.

Whatever this message was they needed it translated, and fast.

Kel'Noz watched as Syphile walked by head down, trying to look unobtrusive. It was strange, he had expected her to be relatively depressed after having her dreams and accomplishments torn away from her, but instead seemed to have become distracted and aloof. He had tried talking to her twice in the last week but she had been… strange. Her attitude seemed to be distant most of the time but every now and then she would burst out in snorts and giggles for no apparent reason. She would be doing something or talking to someone and out of the blue her attention would shift to somewhere just to the right or left of her focus and she'd start to laugh. He even caught her talking animatedly with thin air one day.

_Kel'Noz had been passing the slaves' quarters at the back wall of the fortress when he heard laughter and, Interested, he had naturally sought out the source of the voice. Quietly opening the door to a supply room that sat against the back wall of the cavern he saw not two or even a group of people but a single young Drow holding a piece of rock and a shard of the harder diamond like ceiling of cavern and gesturing wildly to thin air. _

_Behind her was a sizeable depression in the wall of the storeroom. "and so I had been talking with Wen'Dros about It, you know, that pretty Beldrobean girl you said you liked, and she told me that if things got any weirder in the lab then the Vloz'Ress girl would have created an entire new species of idiot. I told her I felt kind of sorry for the boy and you know what she said?"_

_There was a pause and then "of course not, boys are used for experimentation all the time in Orthorbbae." Another pause and a cackle erupted from Syphile "No, I've never turned a boy into a guinea pig but I have heard that the Jaal'Darya can change a male into a female capable of bearing healthy genetically sound children."_

" …_no, seriously, there's no clone, they actually took the male and used a ritual to turn him into a female." After a moment there was a shrieking laugh and she spoke again gasping for air, "Oh yeah, I'm sure you'd make a lovely girl, fur-face, in a couple of centuries when the Vloz'Ress rule Chel and everyone is crazy… no I don't think I'm being too harsh. Quit whining you big baby."_

_Turning back to the wall Syphile held up the two stones and started channeling mana through them, still chatting with no one and the depression deepened slowl,y the rock before her condensing and moving back to form new space. Closing the door quietly, Kel'Noz began to walk back to his rooms._

That had been three days ago. He had caught her back in there twice at different times in the day. He thought it had been lucky that he had noticed her because she seemed to come and go from places almost randomly. Yesterday she hadn't visited the room at all, of if she had he hadn't noticed. And the wall had been filled in as well, or at least he hadn't been able to find any indication that there had been a hole there beyond the mana residue covering it.

No, whatever she was up to he was relatively sure she wasn't going mad; it had to be something to do with her unusual tainting. Could it possibly be she was able to talk with it? That would certainly be new but of course it was rare enough to find a Vel'akar let alone one that wouldn't demand complete control of the host, even the Vloz'Ress only had three and one of them was insane.

But it didn't feel like a demon. When he looked at her aura the discoloration that marked her 'tainting' was a single solid patch of orange that generally settled itself just above her stomach. Demons were red for one thing, and they always spread themselves out across the entire aura staining it a shade of purple or in stronger cases even a red hue. Thus the term tainted.

This entity seemed content to keep to itself while still staying within Syphiles aura and seemed to be having active interaction with her. He wondered if she could still become tainted or possessed by a normal demon or if her tenant would fight it off like it had attacked her tainted teacher and classmates. It was definite food for thought.

_Do you think he's figured it out?_ Syphile asked worried.

**I don't know, possibly. It's more likely he thinks you're nuts. I keep telling you to just think what you want me to hear, so long as you want me to hear it I'll hear it no matter where I am in your aura.**

_I'm doing that now aren't I? _She returned.

**Yeah, you're doing it now, but what about next time we don't notice him approaching, He already knows you're doing something in the storage room, remember? We caught him checking out the door we made, replied the spirit.**

_And you saw he couldn't find it or even the door key, now who's being paranoid?_

**With good reason.** Khul returned. **You know Quainy will want to know why you need a **_**secret**_** room all to yourself and she won't likely be placated by an explanation we both know is bullshit. The best outcome would be that she'd appropriate it for some other use.**

_And you know she'll be much angrier about the tunnel system we're starting than the secret rooms we have planned. She made the walls and ceilings of her fortress thick and gave the rooms sliding doors for a reason and you know as well as I do that reason wasn't for us to do stuff like this s_he returned snidely. _You know Kel is already working on ways to combine other elements for unique spells? It took us a week to figure out how to do hard to soft mineral conversions and the mad scientist himself has already worked out sound to wind in the two days since he caught us._

**Really? When did he work that out?**

_I saw him finish it this morning when you were plotting out how to organize the tunnel system and if we should make it cover the entire fortress or just the target areas. There were papers all over his walls and he looked like he had been up all night again._

**The mad scientist himself, huh? So how'd he get sound to affect wind and vice versa? Were you able to read anything?**

_No, nothing, sorry. It was hard enough to conceal my aura. By the way, how'd you get the idea for using salted meats to augment mana regeneration?_

**I read it in a book once, thought it might work. I'm just lucky it did or else you'd likely have laughed at me all night.**

_Of course!_

**You're rude. So what do you think of those exercises I gave you? **

_They're interesting no doubt, well fascinating really but are they truly necessary?_

**They helped me battle opponents quite well.**

_Yes, and you used a stick or fists, your sword was never tested against anyone and I prefer sorcery to fighting anyways, why do you think I was so happy in Orthorbbae?_

**Because you're a rude, irrational bibliophile who only fights when she has the advantage, **Khul returned deadpan.

_Now who's being rude?____Besides, if anything you've shown me is true, you're quite the bookworm yourself,_ Syphile returned - finally reaching the duos destination. They were in the throne room behind Quain'tanas seat where a circle of blue stone had been patterned into the floor. Turning to face the throne Syphile touched her fingertips onto the backs of a series of green stones in a sequence, her mana flashing at each gentle tap. Suddenly the ground beneath her spun, opening and closing a hole in the stone and allowing the young darkling to fall through into a small room.

_Remind me why you had me set a lock on a revolving iris s_he asked as she stood in the small tube rubbing her bottom gingerly.

**I thought it would be amusing. Magicians used this trick all the time back home when they wanted to seem to disappear. But for them they usually had a lot of smelly explosive powder and the turning was their own doing. I thought an iris gate would not only look cooler but be more effective at keeping people from breaking through if they can't work the key.**

_And you had me waste all of that mana and meat last night to make the iris crystalline so they couldn't magic it out of the way, yes? _

**You were able to retrieve the mana they absorbed weren't you?**

_That's beside the point and you know it._

**Never change Syph. Never change.**

_I was under the impression that change was what you wanted._

…**how are you coming on working lightning mana consciously?**

_Coward._

**That bad, huh?**

_You should know, you've been in my head for the past three and a half weeks._

**Of which you've been conscious two weeks and two days. I haven't been there all the time; I do have things to do for us you know. Two heads are better than one. **Immediately he came to regret that sentiment as Syphile treated him to a mental image of both of their heads on a taurems body. **You're a wicked little girl aren't you; at least you didn't shave the poor beast as well.**

_Eww, that's a little too vulgar even for me. Is there any way to erase a memory from your head, _Syphile queried, bringing out the two stones she had been working with earlier.

**Well, there's brain bleach but I'm not sure you're ready for that just yet, c**ame the immediate and amused response.

_Brain bleach? Bleach? That isn't another one of your human terms again is it?_

Syphile was immediately treated to an image of her tenant beating his head against a stone wall. **Wine, Beer, Whiskey, alcohol in general. Sigh. Give me a moment and I'll get back to you.**

As Khul contemplated the question Syphile began drawing on both of their manas to expand the room. A few minutes later the spirit responded.

**There are two viable ways I see. As we've become able to visualize our minds, memories, experiences and thoughts as concise objects it should be possible to draw upon a specific one and either misfile it, essentially burying or forgetting the memory, or imagine the book holding the thoughts and memories you want erased being destroyed. For the first I'd suggest using it on older memories only, the second you could use on fresher memories without damaging your mind too much.**

**Of course this is all speculation until you put it into practice, h**e said as an afterthought.

The two of them stayed there expanding the tunnel for most of the day coming out twice for more food and once later that night to go to bed. Time was running short and there were still at least two entrances left to build. And then the real work would begin.

Shimi'Lande Val'Kyorl'Solenurn strode through the halls of the temple fuming. She hid it very well but it never ceased to bother her when Chirinide insisted on arguing with her. Didn't she understand that it was the will of the goddess? Vague though they might sometimes be she had visions for a reason. Not to mention the timing was, if possible, worse than usual. They had lost an entire party of holy lances to a raid on the Vloz'Ress and they were no closer to locating the child from her vision, the one who would be at the crux of a battle between Sharess and one of the old gods.

Nothing had come from the blades tip about the summoning accident. Well no, that wasn't quite true. They had checked out the young warriors' information but had been blocked at every turn by that damned tainted scourge of a woman Snadhya'Runes. As soon as the headmistress got wind of their search she had gone to measures to hide it. Not even Waes'Soloth would tell them anything. It was infuriating. She knew the Beldrobean matriarch disliked the tainted almost as much as she did so why did she follow that red eyed dog and her sisters?

'Waes never does anything without reason so there must be some method to her madness.' She thought. 'Now if only Chirinide were that deliberate. Where is she anyways? It's been nearly 10 hours.'

"Lady Illharess! Lady Illharess!" a young warden called running down the halls after her. The child looked out of breath and nervous, something was wrong.

"Speak young one, what is it?" the Kyorl leader asked trying to keep her voice kind.

"A mixed party of darklings and drowussu civilians are at the gates, they've found 3 bodies and a child with a knife wound through her throat, one of them is Chirinide." Shimi'Lande stood there stone still in shock; Chiri was dead… no, this could not be! She had to see for herself. She practically flew in her haste to reach the gates. Arriving, she saw the three bodies on litters, one an older woman with her throat slashed open, the next a light elf ranger who looked to be on the worn end of a gnomish grenade and on the third litter was the badly burned form of her daughter.

Walking over to the group Shimi'Lande placed her hand on what was left of her troublesome daughters face and tears began to cloud her vision. As she sat there on her knees mourning her daughter her sight shifted inward and the vision she had told her daughter of earlier that day shifted and sharpened revealing a slightly different girl in her daughters place, her hair and eyes were gold, she wielded the fires of the holy light and had visions of the future in her own right.

Looking up at the child with the knife wound she smiled sadly. "Take the child to my rooms" she told one of the gate guards. "We'll give these three a proper send off later. I'll see to the child personally."

She had lost one daughter to gain another; it was the will of the goddess. Sharess truly worked in mysterious ways; she just hoped some of them would be less painful.

Syphile got up on the last day of her 'rest' and immediately got the feeling that it would be much wiser just to stay in bed for the rest of the day. Naturally she ignored it. Gathering her black padded silk pants and tunic, as had become her custom, Syphile got up and began her morning rituals.

Her rooms were a small 5 room suite consisting of a bedroom, a small study with a desk and large bookshelf covering one wall, a large central room that was largely empty, a balcony looking over the Sarghress fortress and finally, a spacious washroom. She had chosen these rooms specifically, when she had been offered new accommodation as an honorary daughter of the Illharess, for that washroom.

Immediately upon entering the room you were forced to step up onto a ledge roughly 6 inches off the ground. The ledge was there to hold back the 4 inches of warm water that constantly covered the floor. Immediately to your right was a small partition that was kept dry and filled with towels and a space to dress and undress, directly before her was a steam wheel that could turn the air in the room into a sauna and finally to the right was a large built-in bath tub.

The tub itself was 6 foot square with a three foot wall and sliding stone partitions made to keep the jets of water inside the tub if the bather so wished. Inside, the bath was circular with several spaces to sit down at various levels and a drain at the bottom. The tub had nine spigots from which water could enter the bath placed in three concentric rings, three above, three below and three at waist level all spread evenly along their circle.

The water in the bathroom was entirely self-contained with heating, water pressure and filtering controlled by a central mana core beneath the steam wheel. Such set ups, while rare anywhere else, were commonly found in the chambers of the Val'Sulisin'Rune. There were three such washrooms in the Val'Sarghress fortress. The first was a slightly larger version in the rooms of their Illharess Quain'tana and the third in the room just below Syphiles. The two tower based suites had been installed by, and on the suggestion of, the fortresses architect with the intention of housing visiting Sulisin'Rune dignitaries but they rarely saw use in the years since their alliance with the clan had been formed.

Khul had been immediately impressed the first morning she had gone in there and they had spent hours in the bath soaking and discussing the magics inherent in the system. It was also where they typically did much of their plotting. It was surprising to Syphile how easily plotting came to her, she had never considered herself a bad person or a politician and those were most typically the types of people who found plotting to be useful skills.

Putting such thoughts aside she brought her attention to a problem that had been bothering her for the past few days. The tunnel system was going poorly. The three most important rooms in the lower levels had been connected and the entrances had been carefully concealed to prevent people from finding them without having a fair idea where to look and what to do. They hadn't even begun to start the tunnel between her rooms and the rest of the system.

Not only that she was meant to start exercises with the War Meat the next day and the closest tunnel to her rooms was in Sillice's torture chambers. Intellectually she understood the purpose of the torture and interrogation division; not everyone could be bribed or bewitched by faerns into telling you what you needed to know and bribing always left the informant with some considerable digression on what to actually tell you or even if what they told you was factual.

While torture could easily make a person reveal to you anything they kept hidden for the promise that the pain would stop when the information was given - there was also the problem that some people would tell you what you wanted to hear rather than the truth as it was more likely to stop the beatings than facts were.

Even so, none of that had prepared them for the scene that greeted the duo when her tenant had finally convinced her of the necessity of placing escape tunnels in the cells. Through careful planning over a period of two weeks and precise timing they had managed to enter the cells when none of the T&I staff were present, especially Sillice herself.

Upon entering the main room of the T&I headquarters Syphile had taken one look around the room and immediately emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor. Old dried blood covered the floors and there was a fair amount on the walls themselves, the stench of death and charred meat permeated the air such that it was practically a physical presence in the room. Spread around the large chamber were tables with chains and buckles spread across their surface, some of them set on tilting stands, others stable. Against the back wall were a series of Drow shaped metal boxes Khul identified as 'Iron maidens' and to the right was a series of metal implements of various twisted shapes and most of them looked wicked sharp. At the end of the row was a set of what looked like rods but the ends of the metal, glowing a dull red and smoldering in the icy air of the chamber, drew her attention in a morbid grip that had taken several of their precious minutes to break. Beyond the furniture and tools filling the chamber there were 7 shapes spread across the room, bleeding and moaning quietly. They couldn't be rightly called people anymore as neither of them had been able to tell quite what the figures had been before entering the room.

Khul'Shalkrum had been glad they had stolen a large amount of meat for this job because he doubted he could have convinced his host to enter the room willingly after the first time. Syphile had immediately fled to one of the empty holding cells and set to work creating the escape route without complaint thankful for the lack of light after the door had closed behind them and they had stayed there until the tunnel had finished and been connected to the main conduit.

Since then three more tunnels had been opened in other holding cells emanating from the floor up into the cells rather than the other way around.

But after today there would be little enough opportunity to disappear for long periods of time and build tunnels.

Sighing Syphile shut off the water jets and grabbed a towel. After drying off she went back to the central room and began moving through the exercises Khul had shown her. He called them 'tai-chi', though he still hadn't explained what the name meant, and they were a set of movements meant to strengthen the body without use of external weights. The exercises achieved this effect by having the user stress their own muscles against each other as they moved through a series of positions meant to be repeated in battle. They also allowed the user to enter a sort of detached single-mindedness that allowed her to work on her mana lessons from Orthorbbae as well. After an hour of the exercise and a great amount of sweat Syphiles concentration was broken by the sound of clapping.

Whipping around into one of the many aggressive stances Khul had given her she turned to see Quain'tana leaning against the doorway bring her hands together in a slow sardonic clap. Seeing Syphiles new position she raised an eyebrow at her once, and possibly future heir. She was less than impressed however as she watched the blood drain from her wards face and her complexion turn ashen.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!_ She thought as she quickly bowed before her foster mother. _I almost attacked Quain'tana, she is so going to kill me!_

**Hmm? Did you say something?**

_YES! Haven't you been watching? I was going through those exercises you gave me when mother interrupted and I almost attacked her! She's going to kill me!___Syphile shot back desperately.

**Hah! She'd probably be pleased if you did, it'd make her believe you had a backbone. And no I'm not always watching, I may be inside your head so to speak, but I spend the time while you sleep trying to figure out how to use your new mana affinity and generally wait till you call me to stop. It seems only fair since my presence appears to have changed it; not that you had much training in the affinity, I mean blood, really? Unless it's not so much blood as genetics? That'd be cool.**

As the conversation took place quain'tana watched the girl closely. T_his must be the madness Kel has been talking about. Speaking with her demon, it's made her interesting if nothing else. Singing songs she's never heard before, conversing with thin air, sneaking around doing goddess knows what with stone magic and practicing strange martial exercises. At least most of it seems useful, Might even transfer her to the fallen legion. Let's see how she handles this assignment first._

"Interesting display kid. What was that?" Quain asked her voice neutral.

"It is called Taichi." Came the quiet reply.

"Hmm,.. Follow me." The Sarghress mercenary queen turned and left the room expecting Syphile to follow like one of her soldiers. As she heard a quiet padding behind her she continued to speak. "I've found you a new assignment, complete it satisfactorily and your probation will be rescinded. You will be recognized as an adult and you can choose to go back to Orthorbbae or transfer to your choice of my armies. As you've been skulking around in the shadows doing goddess only knows what for the last month you're likely unaware of the situation so I'll explain when we get there."

20 minutes later, Mel'Arnachs tower

**Spiders huh? This place is creepy and the moans don't help the ambiance any. Remind me what we're doing here again?**

_Quainy is talking us to seen Mel and give me my chance to reaffirm my worth._

**Uhuh, I was referring to the question of what exactly we're doing here that'd allow you to prove anything to her. Maybe she wants' us to stop that infernal racket?**

Syphile glanced up as Quain from her position on the ground to the queens' position apparently lying down on a portion of the upper wall (read spiderborn) and snorted. At this the Illharess opened and eye to gaze down at her charge and raised an eyebrow in question. "I'm sorry, illharess, I was simply wondering why you might need me here and the idea popped into my head that you might be waiting for me to enter Mels room and put some sort of stop to the noise."

At this the other eyebrow rose to meet the first near her hair line. "Your assignment is indeed related to the noises in that room. Quite perceptive. However no, your assignment will not come in making them stop, but rather after they have stopped. Patience child."

**Patience, what's that? Such a curious word, it is.** Khul offered deadpan. Syphile was unable to suppress the giggle of mirth from hearing the comment but thankfully she wasn't required to for as she began to succumb the air behind the door split in a piercing scream and then cut off.

"It would seem it is time to enter." Quain'Tana murmured quietly. Smiling to herself she dropped down the wall and waved her hand at Syphile. "Grant us entry." She demanded in the same quiet dangerous voice she had been using since their first meeting that day.

Syphile walked up to the door and looked at it carefully. There was a handle on the outside but no hinges, were they inside, or was it another one of those sliding doors? Placing her hand just below the handle Syphile collected her mana around and through the door and closed her eyes. A lock! Now to push it… "Well? Are you just going to stand there and do nothing? Knock on the door!"

**Ignore her, Sif. Unlock the door, it's practically the same as the stuff we've been setting up, just bigger.**

_I know._ As Quain'Tana lifted her hand to strike them there was a thump and the door swung open. Looking back at her 'mother' Syphile aksed. "Coming?" and strode into the room.

**HA! The old crone is stunned! Nice work kid. **

_I'm not a kid; you're hardly older than me. What's she doing now? I hear her boots._

**She's grinning and walking quickly, whether to pass you or catch up I'm not sure. Hope she doesn't hit you, I feel everything you do even if it is only to a lesser extent. **Quain'Tana, as it turned out, did not hit them, but merely took a position slightly ahead of her former heir and strode purposefully into her first daughters lair.

Looking past the Sarghress leader she saw a massive spider standing half over a massive alter blur and spin around to glare at them. "Peace Zhor, I've come to see my new granddaughter." Quain said raising her glowing hand in a gesture of piece. As if. It was only light sorcery but as Quains affinity it might become anything she desired in short order.

The massive spider slowly and grudgingly backed over the alter to reveal Mel'Arnach, Quains first daughter, holding a newborn wrapped in a cloth and held tight to her chest. "I thought you might come, mother." She whispered her voice hoarse but happy. "She's so beautiful." Mel murmured to herself, no longer noticing her mother still standing over her smiling.

"Congratulations Mel, you've given birth to a healthy female Drow… much to my surprise." Mel merely gazed down at her child her face almost literally aglow.

**This can't end well. **

_But it's so sweet, and Quainy seems to approve, how can it be bad? Healthy females are much more important here than in your world, accept it._

**It's not that. According to what you've told me mel has been imprisoned in this tower for the last 30 years for her habit of 'pissing in the wolfs eye' as it were. Now the self same wolf is bringing us here for an assignment and looking at her daughters child like a fine steak? That speaks legions of badness. **

"Well, this has been nice. We'll be leaving now." The Sarghress Illharess said sounding much to chipper for anyones good. With a swift movement she grabbed the cloth and scooped the newborn drow into her arms. Zhor and Mel froze in shock, staring at the space the child had just occupied.

"NO! Give her back!" the younger woman cried trying unsuccessfully to sit up and reclaim her child.

"No." her mother replied simply. "You lost your right to this child long before it was conceived. As leader of our clan and our family I hold the right to dictate the style in which its children are raised. You are unfit and I am far too busy to raise her. Syphile, say hello to your new assignment."

**All-father bless, this is not going to be pleasant.**

_You said it. _Syphile agreed. _I just hope Mel doesn't do anything stupid or try to kill me over this._

Tears streaming down her face Mel'Arnach frantically turned to Zhor a silent plea in her eyes. The spider closed its own three main eyes as if in pain and shook its massive horned head. As Quain'Tana turned on her heel and began to march out of the room mel rolled over on the alter her face a mask of fury. "Give me back my child, you thief! I'll kill you!"

Quaintana stopped mid-step. Dropping all pretense of calm she turned around slowly her eyes blazing and shoved the wailing newborn into Syphiles arms. "You dare?" She grated. "after all that I've done, all that I've given you, all that I've put up with you would dare speak as such? I began with nothing, I raised my army, I created this clan, I brought you up and put you through school and even a position of power within the clan I created and you've done nothing but oppose me. You have fought me and rebelled like a spoilt child at every turn and now you would dare to threaten my life to wanting my granddaughter to be raised by someone I can respect? I'll beat you till you beg for death and then death you shall receive."

A loud chittering interrupted Quains rage as the massive form of the spider Zhor leapt over Mel shielding her. Its main eye narrowed the massive arachnid began hissing as it glared furiously at the Illharess. Turning it lunged toward us, fangs bared and its forelegs raised. Panicking Syphiles hand snapped out and landed palm down on the spiders' furry head. As electricity coursed down her arm I concentrated on its shape, forcing it to stun rather than fry the massive beast.

As we stood there panting the electricity cut off and Zhor fell from Syphiles hand twitching but not getting up. _Oh shit_ Syphile though looking quickly back and forth between her dumfounded foster mother and sister. As the source of todays problems began crying again Mel got over her shock and screamed. "Zhor! What have you done? You murderer! You Vel'Akar scum, what have you done?! Zhor!"

**The spider isn't dead, but it won't be getting up for a few hours, it's merely unconscious.** As Syphile repeated my words Mel stopped her screams and broke down sobbing once more.

"Let this be a lesson to you." Quain'tanas voice said cutting through her daughters sobbing. "Neither you nor Zhor are strong enough to take your daughter from me, even Syphile can defeat your pet spider, so don't even try." Whirling around she walked over to where we were still standing and reached for Syphile. She paused at grabbing her arm and instead too her shoulder. "Come." She said and left through the tunnel.

When we were almost to the door the queen stopped and looked at us. "She is my granddaughter, my blood. It will be your duty to raise her until her tenth birthday. Do not fail me."

Syphile bit her lip and responded. "Are you sure you want…"

"Are you questioning me?" she asked her voice dangerous. "I don't know what you did back there with the Aware 'Zhor' but I will not go down so easily."

"No, M'lady, I simply don't think I'm really the best choice to raise a child, I'm not even of age to bear one myself, let alone raise one!"

"Are you that incompetent? Over the last month I had begun to hope you had changed. Is this simple task to much for you?"

"No! I shall do as you wish, I only hope you like the result."

Her eyes narrowing Quain'Tana nodded "Very well. Her life is your own now; if she dies you will dream of deaths mercy." She turned away and began to march up the tunnel.

"Illharess, do you wish to name her, or must I?"

"Ariel" she called over her back. "Call her Ariel."

**Well hell.**

This ends Chapter 2: Rest.

I hope you enjoyed, please PM me some reviews.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3: Privigna

By StormFox

Credits: Authors everywhere, especially my betas, please forgive me for this, but I'm writing this as an experiment in writing OC inserts without becoming a (Marry Sue/Marty Stu). There will be several but the narrator is the main. This tale is based off various fictions, none of which I own. The primary focus fiction represented here is Drowtales, a growing, yet obscure semi-original, five year old, 14 chapter manga by Kern.

Disclaimer: Many of the changes are intentional but Little of Syphiles early life was viewed or explained so if this isn't how you imagined it kern, Sorry? 0.0!

AN: yes, like in Syphiles washroom I am adding mana based inventions that are not in kerns manga. Not that they couldn't be, I'm trying to play this realistic-ish. Things that didn't happen before are **meant** to be caused by Syphiles AU seed and the inventions are meant to be things that can be explained by it just wasn't important enough to show in the manga, but when I hit an idea or am stumped I'm likely to use something unusual to move on. There is a plan and some of these things are Chekov's armory type items but please try to bear with me. Oh and tell me if they break to many of your magical or cannon laws kern, I'd really appreciate it.

Summary: Syphile's life took a turn for the worse when she allowed herself to become 'tainted' so she could learn summoning. But what if during the ceremony… something went wrong? What if instead of a dying demon another soul took its place. Events couldn't have turned out that different, could they?

As we watched Quain'Tana walk away up the tunnel connecting Mels quarters to the rest of the tower the two of us stood there stunned.

**Well hell.** Khul muttered.

_Isn't that the name you balked at?_

**Exactly. The kid's still crying by the way.**

_Yeah. Have any suggestions?_

**Beyond killing it? You could try singing, swinging it around slowly in your arms or feeding it. What do baby Drow eat anyways?**

_What would I sing though?_

**Something quiet, don't you ever sing to yourself when you're upset?**

_No._

… **Repeat after me, the song is called He Mele No Lilo. **(.com/watch?v=xVptV_Da5qw)

30 minutes later. Outside Syphiles room.

"Hello Kel… Is there something wrong?"

"Wrong?" he responded. "Oh quite possibly; it depends on why Quain'Tana decided you needed a new door," He said eyeing the bundle is Syphile's arms.

"WHAT? What new door?" Kel'noz watched as the girl rushed over and began running her hand along the smooth stone searching frantically for something. "Where's the handle; my lock, the key? Why do I have a new door in the first place?" her voice was unusually high he observed. As he watched her eyes widened and she looked down at the bundle in her arms. As he inspected it closely his face darkened.

"So she did it then. I was hoping this could be avoided. The child is my sisters; isn't it?"

"Well, umm, yes. Yes it is. Maybe, I think it's actually mine now. After a fashion…" Came the harried reply. "Who changed my door?"

"Four Durgar and a recently contracted faern. He's a hard minerals earth sorcerer. The door should respond to your aura only, though if I'd known why mother wanted a new door on your room I might have refused."

"Oh." Placing her free hand firmly against the new door Syphile's hand began to glow with accumulated energy. As the door learned her signature patterns began to appear on the smooth surface. Seconds later the lines faded and the door split down the middle; sliding away into the walls. "Um, did you want to come in?"

"I think I just might have enough time. I'm supposed to be packing to return to Devya tomorrow." Syphiles expression grew pained but did not respond. Walking in she held her hand on the door to allow him entrance and then let it close.

The Devya headmaster opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Syphile speaking softly. "Your sister's going to kill me isn't she?"

His first response to the situation crumbled on the Faerns lips hearing the resigned and fearful tone in the young girls' voice. "Probably." He replied with a sigh. "She'd have to learn where you live first if Quain doesn't give you new quarters to house her granddaughter. What's her name by the way?"

"Ariel."

"A pretty name. Now; you know that I don't approve of this and I'll be making regular checkups when I'm on break. The guards will likely have been ordered not to reveal the location of your rooms or any room mother decides to set up for Ariel. That should keep you safe from Mel, mostly. If she finds you she'll likely try to force Ariel's location out of you, but she won't kill you or keep you over long in case it harms her daughter. She's never been one to work with mother, but after this I fear I may lose her."

"So what am I supposed to do? I don't know the first thing about being a mother and I can't just give her back. Besides that _he_ isn't being much help either." Syphile's voice was pleading and Kel wondered what her tenant had offered her in way of advice.

"He?" Quain'Tanas son asked, feigning ignorance.

Syphile's gaze darkened to one of annoyance and focused on the older man "You know perfectly well who I'm talking about. You've practically been stalking me since you caught me playing in the storeroom. Don't try to deny it! I saw all of those papers covering the walls in your study; you suddenly becoming fascinated in how one element might translate to another so soon after I figured one out can't be a coincidence!" Kel'Noz had the good grace to flush with embarrassment under the young girls gaze.

"I'm perfectly free to be curious when one of my charges starts experimenting with high sorcery."

"High sorcery?"

"Yes, you're turning one element into another. I'd think that would be pretty advanced magic. It's not something to be toyed with lightly."

"… I still don't understand how you managed to get a tuning fork to make the air in your office move; turning soft minerals hard is much simpler. There's an incredible amount of air in soft rocks, the sorcery teacher in the crescent explained it when she demonstrated how to use wind sorcery against stone mages. She had us raise our shields and made the pillar explode."

"And you used the two different styles of rock to form a mordant for the mana to compare from! Quite ingenious."

Now it was Syphiles turn to blush, she hadn't received many compliments since returning to the fortress and it felt good to find one in the disapproving figure of her adoptive brother. Khul didn't count; they were connected and merely making things bearable. **Hey! I resent that!**

_Doesn't make it any less true, thanks for ruining a good moment._

**You're welcome, chibi.**

_Furface._

"Syphile." Kel'Noz's voice cut though her internal bickering.

"Yes?"

"I was asking what you planned to do now that you have a child to look after. You were talking with IT again weren't you?" The master Faerns voice was grave.

"Yes, and I don't know what to do. _He_ has given me a few suggestions but for the most part even he isn't sure what to really do." Kel'Noz's face lightened a bit in interest but still maintained its disapproving countenance.

"He? Interesting; what were your tenants' suggestions?"

"Once I told him we could neither ignore the situation nor kill the child he suggested singing to calm the screams. It worked but what about next time? What if it isn't simply upset? I have no idea what to do with a baby or even what to feed one!" Kel'Noz sighed and rubbed his face in his hands. The spirit being violent, even if only slightly, was troubling, but more so was the entire situation.

"I'd suggest getting a slave to act as wet nurse, but you could get milk from various animals. The Nal'Sarkoth for example run a modest business selling milk from their clan oxen. It's nowhere near their largest business venture, but that's more from lack of interest than anything."

"Thanks Kel, I'll talk to Vaega about it."

"Take care Syphile, Take care." Kel'noz replied and left.

Sene'Kha stared down at the completed translation for a long time and then laughed.

She couldn't help it. For centuries the Vloz'ress demon cult had studied the nether void in hopes of preparing for the eventual return of the demons; _knowing_ that Sharess was dead and laughing at the Kyorl'solenurn for blindly following a ghost of a memory. And yet here, right in front of her was proof; irrefutable proof, that not only was Sharess alive and kicking, so to speak, but she was the personal toy of one of the most ancient and vindictive of the demon gods.

Not only were both sides right, but in the end it was they, the Vloz'ress, who were the less deluded. Now wasn't that a horrible irony.

Sene'kha leaned back in her chair and contemplated sending Shimi'Lande a copy of Hathgrels message. It might be worth the cost of sending them an eye of Ghaz'rok to deliver the message. An invention of their resident Vel'Akar, Umpus, the eyes were exhaustive to make and incredibly expensive due to the large crystal structure needed to form one. Their amazing ability to transmit images between the eyes with rather amazing clarity was what made them truly valuable. It was only a highly advanced form of light sorcery, true, but it was something no one else had been able to do and Sene'kha was sure that the fanatics would smash the one she sent them after the message was finished. But if she could just record the Kyorl Illharesse's face when the message was understood it might possibly be worth it.

Shelving such amusing thoughts for later the Vloz'ress puppet-mistress returned her thoughts to the rest of the message. What had disturbed the petty elder demon into action had been a soul. But this was not just any soul, it was a human soul. In the nether void. Since when did humans even have souls? There had always been legends among the slaves of Embiri or Halme champions possessing mystical powers, but all allegations had proven false and none had ever shown even a passing ability to manipulate mana, let alone produce it.

It was probably gone now though, the message raged that the soul had been stolen from the old gods clutches by a Drow summoner and entered their world a little over a month ago. Gone or not, it mattered little, the petty elder demon wanted their world to burn and had sent Kharla'ggen orders to make it happen.

Maybe this could be turned to their advantage though? They had plans to bait and trap one elder demon god once they could find the bait, why not a second?

War Meat Training stockade; the next day.

"Ragnar!" Hollered a voice from the opposite end of the courtyard.

Ducking a blow from his opponent the halmes commander shouted back over his shoulder. "*Not now Darkling, can't you see I'm busy?*" Ducking another blow to the head, the officer spun around and struck his opponent square in the stomach driving the wind out of him.

"*see? You weren't busy! Not that you couldn't have handled the match while talking at the same time. Isn't that a recruit anyways Goddag, Ragnar Drakson?*" Pith'ra Sarghress said, offering the customary bow to the halme commander. "*How are things?*"

"*I was, I could have, and yes. Now what are you here for ambassador, and what's with the new girl? Trying to train a replacement to get away from us already?*" came the amused reply.

"*Would I ever do that to you guys?*" returned the Sarghress trainer, feigning offense.

"*That's how we got you.*" Ragnar replied deadpan.

"*Touché. No, this is a new member for your command. According to the boss lady she even speaks your language!*"

"*Not as bad as you, I hope? So what am I supposed to do with an elfling? She's shorter than me, doesn't even look as old as my daughter, and what, you expect us to take orders from her? Are you drunk?*"

"*Alright, to business then. No, there was no joke or alcohol involved here. Quain is displeased with the kid is being placed under your command for the next few years. Entry level recruit. Train her, work her hard, and let her rise through your ranks like she was one of your own soldiers.*" Finishing his statement, Pith turned on his booted heel and walked back toward the fortress.

Rounding on the small darkling Ragnar frowned. "*Let's see what you've got kid.*"

Syphile and Khul'Shalkrum stood slightly behind and to the right of the sarghress ambassador to the Halmes division of the War Meat, lieutenant Pith'ra, watching them talk.

The commander was amazing, handling a blade-staff like an artists' brush, he had literally danced around his opponent as they had been walking up. Even when Pith had started talking to him and forced him to divide his attention the commander had still easily beaten the other halme. As they stood there listening to them talk Syphile had some difficulty keeping up with what was being said. _Hey fur-ball, what's up with this? You said you were human and both Quain and Kel recognized that song I sang in the court room, why am I having trouble understanding him?_

**Any number of reasons really. We talk mind to mind so there's no communication error between us but even a single human language, just like chellian, can have hundreds of variations depending on where someone grew up. That and he's talking really fast. He sounds like a drunken Texan to me. No idea what to tell you, just speak when he talks to you and hope he understands.**

_You're a lot of help._

**You couldn't live without me.**

_Want to try me?_

"*Let's see what you've got kid.*"

"^Yes sir," Syphile replied cautiously.

"*Speak up, get a spear and talk properly damnit! That accent is terrible. What is it with you elves anyways?*" The man grumbled.

_Did you get that?_

**Most of it, the rack is behind you. Get a stick fast and try not to disappoint him. We're under his command now and I don't think he'll be as restrained as Quain.**

_Like I needed you to tell me that?_ She grumbled quickly grabbing one of the blunted blade-staves from the rack. _Let's see if your skills mean anything, furface._

Commander Ragnar watched as the small girl ran over to the rack and grabbed a spear just a little bigger than she was. Considering it was the smallest one there she at least knew proportions. It was time to see if she knew how to use one.

When she was back before him the girl bowed and leapt back into a strange, if solid, fighting stance, the blade pointing toward him. He began to circle her slowly. He thrust his own blade at her one handed a few times at increasing speeds only to have them knocked aside. Each strike came closer to hitting her. Her reaction time would need a lot of work certainly but at least she wasn't a complete rookie.

Spinning his spear he brought it sweeping forward in a heavy overhead strike like a staff. The blow was blocked but the kids' stance was wide open now. Tilting his head slightly to the side he quickly reversed his grip and brought the bottom end of the spear around to impact against the girls jaw. Apparently seeing this she brought her stick down in an attempt to block but merely ended up blunting the blow and earning a bloody lip.

The testing went on for 10 minutes more becoming increasingly advanced and by the end of it the girl was shivering and heavily colored, a distinctly darker shade of black. "*You're not bad kid, certainly not a rookie, but you've a long way to go if you want to survive ambushing a group of red eyes. You're dismissed. Go use one of your funky healing lights and report to me tomorrow morning.*"

Syphile limped her way up the tower to her rooms fuming. She had kept the sound to a minimum while _creature_ had slowly beaten her to a pulp making comments the whole while but she was about ready to explode. _Fisking bastard, why didn't you let me electrocute him?!_

**You're not serious are you?**

_Of course I'm bloody serious! He beats me black and blue and you're muttering ' take it, don't cry out, do this, strike there!' None of it worked!_

**And this brings us to me **_**allowing**_** you to kill a man with electricity how? I have no more idea how to use it than you do.**

_You made it attack the people at my school and Mels spider Zhor! Of course you know how to use it! Don't lie to me!_

**As you wish. I. Do. Not. Know. How. To. Turn. On. Your. Lightning. Sorcery. You did that yourself both times; all I did was reshape it.**

_You seem to have figured out the others pretty easily._ Syphile returned sullenly channeling some mana into her door to open it.

**You lent me access to your memories of the lessons the Yathraines gave you. They explained how to make your mana affect each different element they could teach, lightning wasn't covered. Besides, why haven't you figured it out yet? Not only have you done it twice already, on instinct, but you figured out how to turn soft stone dense in a manner that impressed a skilled Faern in what seems to be a phenomenally short time. I mean 7 months of research on elements that are basically the same and you found a comparatively low mana method of altering them. You're trying to get me to make up an entirely new, or more possibly forgotten, concept in what has only been 1 month.**

_Ahhhh…._ came the relaxed thought from across the link. Returning to the 'windows' Khul glanced out to see Syphile sliding into the large bath full of hot water.

**You haven't been listening to anything I just said, have you?**

_What was there to listen to? You were justifying being useless, right?_

…

_I take that as a yes._

**I can drive you mad. I know the perfect song to do it as well.**

_You wouldn't dare! How can you even call that a song? There are but two rudimentary lines that just keep repeating._

"Mistress?" came a voice from the door.

"Yes, Maev?" Syphile called.

"The child is fed for the moment, may I return to my room?" Maev; Syphile reminded herself was the wet nurse one of Quains Deves' has sent to her the previous day shortly after Kel had left. The woman was a lifesaver.

"Yes, you may return to your quarters, thank you Maev."

**You should get her aura patterned into your door.**

_Being paranoid again? I thought that was my job, it's my life that's in danger you know._

**Tell me that again when I stop feeling your pain.**

_Feeling my pain. _Syphile remarked bitterly. Y_ou hardly know my pain. Shared physical sensations aside._

**Just wait till Ariel no longer needs a wet nurse, then you'll have all of the duties involved with raising a child. My mother loved telling us horror stories about raising kids.**

_Don't talk to me for the next hour or so._

**Your wish is my command.**

_If only._

Syphiles journal; Sarghress central tower.

_Today marks a full month since the beginning of my care for the demon child. While I say this primarily in jest the situation is not far from the truth. Screaming constantly for one reason or another she allows me little rest; never more than a few hours at any given time. My one escape from the madness comes in the beatings that masquerade as training with the Halme commander Ragnar. At least he claims my efforts show promise so my time is not completely wasted on bruises._

_The Embiri shogun; their equivalent for a commander, has proven to be of some help to my situation however. She suggested I learn a practice called meditation; it is a state similar to the trance Khuls TaiChi exercises induce and does provide an effect much similar to actual rest. _

_Further aid has come from Nei'kalsa who suggests reading to them when their screams are for attention rather than food or their ever-present waste. Truly, how much shit could an infant produce? Is that little truly used by their bodies? Nevertheless, I have adopted this technique as a method of coping with my situation. It feels good to work out ones problems while reading a good book aloud. The child may not understand anything that is being said, but it can't possibly hurt them and it tends to keep them silent if they hear voices nearby._

_Goddess I hate the screams; they make Khuls nagging voice seem like a pittance in comparison. I do hope he never reads this, I'd never hear the end of it._

_Speaking of books I've taken to self study, an old habit of mine that Khul was wise to push me back to. The sessions with Sillice were little more than thinly veiled excuses to torture me for being tainted. That monster of a woman hardly seems to understand, let alone care, that Khul is not a demon; he is an ethereal I managed to summon in a tainting ceremony and that is all she feels the need to know. The tunnels were a marvel, it is likely unwise to record mention of them but I cannot help but wonder at our forethought and what may have happened had it not been._

_The sessions with my fiend of an 'elder sister' were not all for lack of success however, Khul has finally produced results with allowing me to call up lightning at will. It should be no end of use if I am ever able to use it in a real battle. Pray we never face the Durgar however; pacifists no longer, I often wonder how we toppled their society as quickly as we did; while fleshlings they are not entirely comprised of such. Half of the diet of the mercenaries in the camp consists of rock. No falsehood, they actually pull out bars of earth and chew them swallowing soon after. I have little doubt that it does indeed have some effect on their strength and durability as a gnome can be pierced by a Halme dagger whilst these Durgar 'storm hammers' can punch their way through thin steel without bruising._

_I am told by former Halme mercenaries who joined the Sarghress while they were still free that the stone they live in and consume actually contributes to their skin color as well, I wonder what should happen if one of them were to eat or live in a vein of bloodstone, as it's loose sandy formation a deep crimson in color. A red Durgar would be quite a sight. Or of marble maybe, might they gain the dark spider web markings?_

_Undoubtedly there is some nutritious value to them from different minerals but I have yet to understand what it may be._

_In other worries I have met Mel since our encounter in her lair. She was livid for it had not taken hours as my idiot companion offered but days that Zhor slept from the blast. I fear I shall never look at wall fastenings the same way after that encounter. As a personal reminder, NEVER use lightning sorcery when you're bound to a wall by tapestry hangings. Or any metal for that matter. Lightning needs an outlet._

_A note on lightning affinities, should any after me earn one. Lightning appears to work on a division of self. Just like there is right and wrong, male and female, good and evil, there is also a division of mana. It is not all one feeling but can be separated into opposites. These opposites naturally wish to reconnect as a whole and allowing them to do so will generate the element. After that it is a matter if will and imagination. Surely there are many properties to be explored in how this lightning affects the mana sciences but that is at least the general idea._

_I better wrap this up, my ward cries once more._

2 weeks later.

Mel'Arnach sat in her lair, head in her hands, and growling in frustration. She had been following Syphile for the past month but the girl had this infuriating ability to escape her without even knowing she was being followed. Often she would travel well lit corridors with plenty of inhabitants she wouldn't have a chance of staying hidden in or double back to the kitchens on a whim, but sometimes she would just inexplicably disappear.

She couldn't understand it; there was no such thing as teleportation, it was just a myth made up by civilian magicians about the wondrous things one could learn in Orthorbbae. Nevertheless Syphile seemed determined to probe her wrong. Mel had gotten frustrated a few nights ago and set her little sister on the harlot. Laele had come back as ordered and shown her an old storehouse. But there wasn't anything there. She questioned her sister asking where she had last seen Syphile go but all she would do is gesture at the storehouse door.

She had searched the area over and over. There was no more mana residue here than anywhere else in the fortress so Syphile hadn't been working on an invisibility art. The room had some deep shadows and darkly colored stone but that wasn't unusual for the fortress had been made of stone quarried from several different caverns and fused together with earth sorcery. The only oddity in the warehouse was a pattern of green stone on the back wall.

Brushing her fingers along the discolorations Mel flared her mana over the surface of the stone… and nothing happened.

Mel sat down on a crate, furious. She was nearly 400 years old for Sharess sake! How could a 16 year old slip of a failed summoner beat her? How could she possibly vanish from Laele'aell in a sealed storeroom? There was only one goddess forsaken door!

Standing back up she leaned down to examine the markings again. Looking closely she saw that one of the discolorations was now a darker shade of green. Immediately interested, Mel repeated her earlier action. As the mana danced across the surface of the stone she watched closely and 'felt' a few sparks sink into the green patches. To her dismay the darker green mark returned to its original hue and nothing happened still.

Growling she flared her mana over the stone that had turned dark and it darkened once more. Choosing another at random she flared her mana over it; the stone darkened. Smirking she selected another stone flaring her mana there… and the pattern changed, all of the discolorations in the stone a uniform soft green. A Gollum lock. Now what in the world would Syphile need with a Gollum lock?

It was time to pay Syphile another visit.

The lair if Mel'Arnach; Sarghress tower.

Syphile groaned as she regained consciousness. Rolling over on to her side she curled up and grabbed her head, moaning.

What had happened? Had she had too much wine before falling asleep? Had she rolled out of bed and hit her head on the floor? No, that would have woken her up… cracking open an eye syphile cast a bleary pain-blurred gaze over the room. It was large, not her bedroom. Fuzzy grey shapes were moving around on the floor. Groaning, Syphile rolled over on her back, still holding her head. Perfect, just perfect. It seemed she had not made it back from the library. So that meant either this was another play date with Sillice or she was going to have a second chat on the meaning of parenting with her dear older sister Mel. Due to the lack of Silices usual chorus of moans and screams this was probably Mel.

"Ah, you're awake!" came a cheery voice from behind her. Goddess thate voice was driving straight into the center of her migraine.

"Hello, Mel." Syphile moaned in reply. Sitting up she noticed the new chain around her neck. Perfect "Decided you need another pet, Missus spider?"

"Quite rude it is, dear Zhor. And naughty to. Do you think we should discipline her? It could be fun." Mel said conversationally, apparently ignoring Syphile.

"It can't talk to you. Even the dragons have lost their speech; it's a fair wonder your pet is anything more than a hungry animal." Syphile growled resting her head against her knees. The response to this comment was a chorus of hissing and clicking accompanied by mels clucking tongue.

"And they were so happy to see you, dear child. Why do you offend us so?" Mel asked in mock hurt and innocence, stroking Syphiles cheek. "You know we only wanted to get to know you better."

"An yet you still wonder why you have such a dreadful reputation around the fortress... hmm, I wonder why people might get such ideas. You know they say you rape women, eat the flesh of still living men and Sillice is even spreading it around the slaves that you killed your own daughter? Oh, and you're slowly turning into a drider because you're screwing Zhor, did you know?"

There was a sharp pain on the back of her neck and Syphile saw blackness once more.

**You know, I may just be paranoid, but it might not be the wisest thing to antagonize a mother who believes you've not only wronged her, but are an uncaring demon? I mean, after all, you have changed physically because of my presence.**

_You're not helping the situation any. She's probably brought me here again because of your actions. It's not like you're innocent in changing me. Different ways to think, different ways to act, knowledge others couldn't possibly give me, you changed my entire bloody aura. I was the meek unlucky brainiac, I was this worlds 'Willow Rosenberg' before you came. Now what am I? A creepy freak, stuck with a child to raise and a dozen special projects that quain would likely kill me for, getting beaten daily by a human male, all because of you. And now this, because you decided to zap Mels bug._

… There was a silence and suddenly the library of Orthorbbae materialized around her. **Yeah, I got you to start the projects and landed you the training with our human friend but you tainted yourself and your queen was going to stick you with raising it anyway. You're Mels guest for electrocuting her boyfriend, so I messed up. If I hadn't interfered you'd have roasted the bug. Not a great loss all told, but mel'd kill you for that; or if she didn't it'd be to spare her daughter death by neglect. **

**You're exhausting yourself repeatedly with intense mana control and elemental manipulation sessions, building tunnels and stealing things that would get you executed anywhere else. Those tunnels have helped you escape pain from Sillice many times and using your mana forces you to gain a larger threshold. Beyond that your Houdini act is probably driving the ice witch mad which I can assure you is bringing you no end of amused attention from Quainy who probably thinks you're growing a spine.**

**An your lab? Quain may not like magic, but she sees its usefulness and the fact that you have a lab made with stolen materials and refuse will probably impress her. Metal takes a while to shape because it's hard and there is no space to compress, but if you get it hot or turn it to dust things get much easier, thus the forge and interest into sound mana.**

**As to commander Ragnars beatings, well I can't really justify that, but he still talks to you while you spar. Normally that means a martial teacher is impressed with you, and you are getting better. What you need to watch out for is when he stops talking. That can only mean one of two things, he's either deemed you a duty and no longer worth the effort to train or he's taking you seriously which means he stops pulling his punches.**

_And what part of that is supposed to comfort me?_

**Who said it was? You're waking up now, Mel's giving you something.**

Wrenched back into consciousness, sitting up, head back, mouth open, Syphile jerked forward coughing and expelling the liquid moving down her throat. On her knees coughing syphile spluttered out a question. "What was that?"

"A stimulant. Now shall we get back to your discussion? I want to know what you were up to in storeroom 18 that requires the use of a Gollum lock. If you don't tell me, I'll tell mother, and she won't like you hiding things in her walls, little Vel." Ah, the storeroom… so that was what she was after.

"The storeroom… so Laele'eall isn't out to eat me, that's good to know."

"I'm fairly surprised you noticed her, that's no small feat."

"It would be, if she bothered to hide herself. I supposed you simply told her to follow me, because there was no stalking involved."

"And what is you're doing in the store room? What, precisely, are you hiding." asked Mel, kneeling face to face with Syphile now.

"You haven't exactly done much to inspire my trust. Personally I don't give a damn whether you do or don't see your daughter but there's a few, teensy tiny little problems."

"Oh? And what might those be?" Mel spoke, her voice that high, fasle, sickly cheerful voice having returned.

"Would you like a list, or would you prefer a detailed report?"

"You've been sounding less and less like yourself these last few weeks, my dear. What would mother think if she knew a demon was raising her granddaughter?"

"**You know, if you kill me, I can ensure that any pain you visit upon me will be revisited three fold on your little girl, Mel**." Mels face instantly darkened.

"What have you done?" she asked her voice hard and cold as ice.

"**Done? Absolutely nothing; it's more a question of what will you do? See, our rooms are both hidden and sealed by Quains order, I'm sure you've noticed the lack of quarters in my old corridor and the guards unwillingness to reveal our location to you? If you kill Syphile, your daughter starves.**"

"No…"

"**Do you know what happens when a person starves, Mel?**"

"Stop…" Mel whispered slapping the face of the fiery haired girl before her.

"**Quain knows, many of the soldiers know, many of them have felt and seen the agony it inspires; the desperation. Ask them, look into their eyes as they remember. See the horror.**"

"Silence!" There were tears beginning to flow down Mels face as the voice continued.

"**The first there will be a small pain in the abdomen, but don't worry, it'll grow. The longer there is no food the greater the pain becomes, until suddenly it stops. It stops because the body has gone into hibernation mode. The first things to go from there will be the body's fat stores. The body, sensing no food is forthcoming sends enzymes into the blood stream. They tell the body to eat the fat, the hunger must be saited. But even in a child, the fat will burn off quickly. Babies need a LOT of energy.**"

"Stop! I command you!" lifting a shaking hand and pointing at the girl before her she tried to use shadow sorcery to block the girl out, but in her emotional disquiet her control was hardly existant and the shadows wavered and flickered like a fire.

"**Next the muscles will atrophy. The fat is gone, but the body still needs fuel, protein is a fine source of fuel, and what is muscle but protein?**"

"No, please, stop!" Mel began backing away from the boring gaze of those brilliant orange eyes. She couldn't stand it, how could anything speak to a mother this way? To describe their child's plight of indescribably agony like they were discussing the color of the local stone?

"**Then once there is only enough muscle to stumble around and twitch by the body realizes that there is nothing more to be gained from the muscles, but it doesn't care. It still needs to feed. So it turns on the only thing left. The body begins to eat the organs. Now the pain becomes so great that the mind can no longer process it and simply ignores what it's being told. It must eat! The stomach begins to swell as the organs rot inside the skin, eaten by the very body they serve and maintain. But still it is not enough.**"

Mel was down on her knees by the wall, her head in her hands. "No… no, please…stop."

"**Oh, but you haven't heard the worst of it yet, Mel. You need to hear this; you need to understand why you need me. The worst part of this whole situation is, as the body nears the stage where the organs begin to deteriorate, giving them food is the worst thing you can do. Like a rabid dog, or a desperate drug addict suffering from withdrawal, they will grab the food from you and devour it, but by then their stomach can't handle it any more. They vomit, spewing half digested food and acid out through their already damaged throat and mouth, burning and eating away at what is there. Or if they're too far gone, the food cannot be digested, it simply sits in their bellies, rotting. The food they so needed now becomes a poison in their blood, boiling it and bringing a return of the terrible agony. But then at least they don't have to suffer a lingering death.**"

"Why are you telling me this? How could you be so depraved as to tell the mother of the terrible death of her first daughter? In detail?" Mel sobbed looking back up into the face of her tormenter.

"Because you need to understand…" Syphile replied, her voice normal once more, the light gone from her eyes. "You need to understand that at the end of the day, when all is said and done between us, that is me, and me alone who holds all of the cards. I die, she dies suffering. You torture me, or get others to do it for you, she is neglected. Call it mutually assured destruction; I get hurt, it hurts Ariel which hurts you. You asked earlier why I wouldn't give you access to your daughter despite not caring either way? Because my life depends on Quain seeing her as a success. "

"Get out." Came the whispered reply as a key clattered on the floor in front of Syphile. "Just get out…"

**Well it seems using the Gollum lock as a distraction from the real one is working quite well. What do you think?**

_Shut up._

**This is about that speech I gave to Mel, isn't it.** it was not a question, they both knew how it had affected her.

_Did you really have to be that cruel? It even made me shudder, and I could see the memories. You were painting her, her own images in her mind, ones of her daughter suffering this!_

**It's not right, I know. I feel terrible as well, but in the end it'll be better for you… I hope.**

_How? You just turned a dangerous psychopath into a murderous one, you hypocrite._

**Choice spending of 100 ada if nothing bad comes of this.**

_You're on, but your stake is being my quiet attentive slave for the next 10 years._

**What!? That's hardly fair!**

_And 100 ada's a fortune, now shut it furball._

Three weeks later.

As Syphile walked to the War Meat camp that morning she was surprised to see a flurry of activity around the halme gates. Looking around she saw the commander standing by the door a white stone bottle in his hand. Taking a large swig of its contents the man waved to Syphile a cheery smile on his face. Instantly a feeling of dread crept up her spine; the last time the commander had smiled at someone like that there had been an open camp single person spar. The man had been pitted against one of the storm hammer dwarfs; the result had not been pretty.

"*Good morning, Kit! How goes my favorite fox-girl?*"

"*She's rapidly becoming frightened sir, and you?*"

"*And what reason might you have to be scared, Kit?*" Ragnar asked, mock hurt in his voice.

"*Because last time you smiled like that at someone, you put them in the hospital in the name of entertainment. And now you're smiling at me.*"

"*Don't be like that, little kit. I wouldn't hurt you, you're not even a proper vixen yet.*" the commander replied grinning.

"*And what exactly do you call our morning workouts then? Good training?*" she asked, continuing the game they always played, still cautious.

"*Exactly!*" Ragnar exclaimed happily, taking another swig and seeming pleased that his charge understood.

"*You know, most people would call that abuse.*" Syphile returned deadpan.

"*Don't be like that! We were going to take you with us this time, introduce you to the three pillars of society, we were.*" the grizzled fighter said, swinging his hammer around lazily.

"*Pillars? Do I want to know?*" Ragnars hammer thumped onto the ground head first and he leaned on the haft his face a mask of mock shock and hurt.

"*You disappoint me, kit. And here I thought we were close?*"

"*Your people also say familiarity breeds contempt. Our people certainly know this. Mother has lived for 700 years and has had Mel for nearly 400. They hate each other near all the time; though I think that's mostly Mels' fault.*"

"*Be that as it may, want to come? We could use an extra hand.*" he said his face now serious.

"*Mother give us a mission? Someone opening portals in the city? Sharen or Vloz'Ress?*"

"*HA HAH HA! Hold up there kid! The last portal master we killed was 6 weeks ago. Not like during your war, Portal masters sneaking around everywhere. We weren't much use when the Red eyes stormed the Sarghress walls, half of the squads were lost just killing a handful of summoners, but the ones who snuck past? We were a great response for that. Got 13 with the help of the orcs. No, today we're going on our monthly tour of two of the chief pillars of your culture.*"

"*And those are?*"

"*Sex, Blood and food. We're going out after the last two; ostensibly it's a grocery run since there's no war or demon portals of recent. We do the grocery run; sure, but we also play the gladiator arenas. It's how me and my men paid for our dinners before Quain recruited us.*"

"*Uhuh, and you wish me to come because I'm part of your unit now? Surely you do this more often than this.*"

"*Well, I'll admit it's not entirely innocent. There's big money in the arenas, and the money's better when it's a rookie. You'd have to win of course… but you're better now than most rookies and with that thunder touch you have I can't see you losing in the open unlimited circle to anyone but the champion, a dwarf by the name of diamondhead.*"

"*Diamondhead? What's he like?*" Syphile asked, as always, fascinated by the unknown.

"*Yeah, Diamondhead. He used to be the champion of the dwarves, or so people say. Old as the hills themselves. While many of the dwarf warriors chew stone as a source of food, he's said to consume gemstones. It's probably rubbish of course, but no elf has bested him in the 30 years I've watched the arenas.*"

"*Why though? You said he was the champion of the unlimited arenas; that means mana arts. Surely no dwarf would withstand a powerful sorcerer?*"

"*That's just the thing though. It doesn't even faze him, he just starts glowing and walks right through the spell to hammer the stupid long ears into the wall.*" Ragnar smiled as the young darklings eyes widened and she started babbling about magic and wondering how the dwarf might achieve such an effect. He had her, hook line and sinker. Now he just needed to get her into the arena and the ada would start rolling in. Now, to get her some proper armor; that metal stave would only go so far.

This ends Chapter 3: Privigna.

I hope you enjoyed, please PM me some reviews.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4: Crime

By StormFox

Credits: Authors everywhere, especially my betas, please forgive me for this, but I'm writing this as an experiment in writing OC inserts without becoming a (Marry Sue/Marty Stu). There will be several but the narrator is the main. This tale is based off various fictions, none of which I own. The primary focus fiction represented here is Drowtales, a growing, yet obscure semi-original, five year old, 14 chapter manga by Kern.

Disclaimer: Many of the changes are intentional but Little of Syphiles early life was viewed or explained so if this isn't how you imagined it kern, Sorry? 0.0!

Summary: Syphile's life took a turn for the worse when she allowed herself to become 'tainted' so she could learn summoning. But what if during the ceremony… something went wrong? What if instead of a dying demon another soul took its place. Events couldn't have turned out that different, could they?

Quain'tana stood in Syphile's main room gazing down at the sleeping infant in the stone basin that protruded from the wall. It had been nearly a month since she had gotten a few hours alone to breath; between meetings with the council of nine, the Deves heads, working logistics with her generals, dancing around the clan politicians and maintaining her physical skills she'd hardly had enough time to sleep! It was a pity there wasn't an active war at the moment so she could justify larger delegations of responsibilities and go enjoy herself once in a while. Damn Kel'noz and his sensible arguments… him and Rosof.

Turning her attention back to the peacefully sleeping infant she snorted. Her granddaughter was going to have an interesting life if any of her reports were accurate; Syphile was turning into quite an interesting character. She had set one of the fallen legion, a promising young shadow stalker by the name of Maeve, to keep tabs on the girl immediately after placing Ariel into Syphiles care but by then it had already been too late. The child had developed a knack for disappearing from detection by her stalkers in some of the strangest places; a fact she found great amusement in on the numerous occasions T&I had reported to her Sillices growing frustrations. Also, Maeve believed the rash of missing materials was somehow tied to the girls' activities as well; Syphile's journal was not the most illuminating of sources due to the foreign script it was written in but the watcher had noted that the writing tended to increase dramatically directly after the disappearance of supplies.

The girl was up to something, and something usually translated to a backbone. Hearing the ghost of footsteps behind her Quain'tana smiled. "You're back early Maeve, anything interesting to report?"

Maeve, she saw, still in her slave getup smiled and spoke softly. "Possibly, Illharess."

Raising an eyebrow she turned back to her sleeping grandchild. "And?"

"It would seem that the human divisions have seen fit to alter the time of their supply run into Chel. Syphile is with them."

"GET LAELE'AELL NOW!"

Warden Glae'dryn cast his gaze around the establishment and sighed in disgust; how it was that their darkling cousins would find such amusement in such senseless bloodshed was well beyond her ken. She only hoped that her queens' premonition of the visitor making an appearance in such a place was accurate.

Frowning down at the current fight between a surprisingly well armored Orc and a pair of the houses Taurem she frowned, wondering if she was being punished. Her blade had died last month when she had run afoul of a pair of Vloz'ress berserkers. The two Templers with them had been injured as well but not without killing the brutes and their handler. It wasn't really her fault, she kept reminding herself, the Templers had the demon spawn well in hand so she had taken her blade and gone after the tainted swine behind them. Logical, no? As it turned out the bastard had quite a talent for illusions and she had ended up giving the air a spectacular thrashing while her blade attempted to skewer the twitchy little creep.

Her blade had been stabbed through the back.

And now she was here.

It was an important job certainly. If she found the child from Lady Shimi's vision it would be a fine jewel on her cape, but the queen's vision had been uncertain as to which arena would be the one and thus she waited - totally alone save for the scum of the city for their dubious company. [i]I hate my life[/i].

Syphile stood in the challengers' atrium and fidgeted. For an arena that boasted a battle every 10 minutes there were a suspiciously small number of souls in the room. That was probably because these fighters weren't owned by the establishment. Glancing around and studying the assembled warriors, Syphile thought about how she had come to be here.

Begin flashback

When she and the group of 23 humans had entered the city, they had almost immediately split up. The Embiri and Halmes each perused different sections of the market with the coin they were allotted for supplies and Commander Ragnar of the Halme division had sent her off to one of the cheaper armories with the other rookie the group had taken on in past months, Joel Jackson.

Joel was a 23 year old underworld orphan who had decided that it was time to ditch the streets of the city and join the largest multispecies mercenary force in the underworld - the Sarghress. Joel was the young recruit she had seen being beaten soundly by the commander when she had first joined. Now that they were back in the city his cockiness that had earned him the thrashing that she typically withstood had returned.

At least he had something to back it up this time around.

Since Commander Ragnar's crazy scheme for world domination wouldn't start for another hour or so, they had very little money with which to get her some armor. Thankfully Joel knew just the place; you didn't survive growing up as an orphan, let alone a human, on the streets of Chel without learning where to find food, work or some type of protection; Joel had found all three in a small bolt hole in the north quarter of lower Chel'el'susoloth.

Every elf in Chel knows how to use mana. Most practiced it as children because making lights was pretty. After childhood the most typical users of mana were those who sold their power at the mana forges in north western Chel, but every so often, about one in every twenty or so would actually develop their powers as a way to earn a living - honest or not. As it turned out Joel knew an enterprising Darkling in the under-city who had developed a talent for the high art of shape shifting, a rare skill that combined the elements of blood, bone and often, empathy. While it held the properties of none of its composite affinities, it gave a similar and highly useful result.

Consequently the merchants' main trade was in biological products, easily reformed by his unusual skill. Weapons and pieces of armor crafted from condensed bone and carapace hung everywhere on the walls and even from the ceiling; armors of hard and soft leather stood on racks that took up the main floor of the shop and on the back wall behind the counter were squares of material that were labeled to contain various reshaped organs and meats beneath their shiny shells. Joel had found the man when he was young and made a living hunting the large bugs that inhabited the surrounding caverns. The bugs were later stripped of their shells to be reformed into specially tailored chitin plate armor made from the shells of the underworlds large bugs while their various organs and muscles became squares of meat to be sold to other customers. Large and armored though the insects had been, not very many could handle a human ramming a stick through their eyes and into their skull. After purchasing a set of the chitin armor they had proceeded to the alleyway next to the armory.

"Come on Sif, I know a… shortcut." Joel looked hopefully at the young Darkling. She raised a skeptical eyebrow, wary. "It's this way." Without waiting for a reply, Joel took off running down the alleyway. Syphille, running to catch up, muttered an oath under her breath. "Blasted Halme."

After almost ten minutes of running, Syphille caught up to the Halme boy, in a dank water logged ally, out of breath. "Joel, I'm going to kill you for this [i]shortcut[/i] later. Slowly and pain…" she trailed off, seeing Joel standing stock still. He was facing a rather irate looking group of people, among which were a Taurem, a Dwarf, and several burly Dark Elves.

"Fancy meeting you here," Joel said, voice breaking slightly. He prayed that the Darkling girl hadn't noticed. "What brings you to this section of Chel?" He grinned, and slid his hands behind his back, grasping the hilts of his two knives. The largest of the Drow growled.

"You, Joel Clarkson." The Drow looked rather annoyed and ready to bite the Halme's head off. Judging by his size, he probably could. "You have caused us a lot of problems since you joined _those _[i]War Meat Marines[/i]_._" He definitely did not sound happy. The Dwarf muttered something unintelligible, and hefted a wicked looking axe. "We should just kill him now, Kal."

"There's no need for that," Joel squeaked. He heard the Darkling girl behind him laugh at something.[i]Please don't let her be laughing at me![/i] He pleaded silently.

"What'd he do?" Syphile spoke up from behind him, "If you don't mind my asking."

"He managed to run out on a debt and survive. Because of this other little shit, clients have been getting it into their heads that they can skip out on debts by hiding behind other organizations. [i]Like the Sarghress.[/i] We've already lost six other losers to them including a special interest of mine…[b][i]Jer'kol[/i][/b]."

"Loan sharks, huh…" Syphile muttered. "You sure know how to pick them, kid."

"Enough talk, back off feral, the human's coming with us." As the group spoke and stepped forward onto the water covered stones Syphiles eyes narrowed and her face turned a deeper shade of black. Whipping out her staff she rammed the rod between the crumbling stones that made the floor of the shallow pool. Joel gazed on in awe as sharp arcs of visible blue white energy sped down the metal pole, across the water and into the group of thugs making them jerk spasmodically.

Syphile wrenched her staff out of the water and turned her brilliant orange glare on Joel. "Arena. Now. No detours."

End flashback

"Hey you," A voice called out, slicing straight through Syphile's reverie "The brat with the orange hair! You're up next; your name's just been given to the announcer." Nodding, she stood up and began to strap on her new armor. Hefting the dark-iron pole she was using for a weapon, Syphile proceeded to the gates, wondering what odds the bookies would give Ragnar on her fight. Standing before the gates she waited and watched as slaves cleared the ring of the dead bodies from the last fight and shuddered.

[b]"Today, my fine patrons, we are presented with a new challenger!"[/b] boomed a voice from beyond the opening gates. [b]"A rare and mighty creature from the moons above has come to the ring of blood to do battle with the toughest scum of the underworld!"[/b] The announcer continued as Syphile reached the center of the pit. [b]"But such daring young travelers should be careful what they wish for, because she has now found herself ambushed by a family of Xuile'solen. Give a rousing welcome for our young traveler, The Storm Fox!" [/b] As the crowd roared its interest there was the metallic thump of a lock being thrown open and the gate on the other side of the arena opened to reveal five 'sightless' of varying ages. Damn. "You have two minutes to place your bets before the fight starts."

"RAGNAR!" Syphile shouted as she crouched down and watched the quintet slowly move along the arena walls to surround her. "If I die down here, I swear by the nine moons, I'll become a poltergeist and haunt you for the rest of your miserable life!"

"I told you it was called the circle of blood for a reason, kid, what did you think it'd be like?" he called back, toasting her from the second story wall. "Besides, you better win. I got great odds on you!"

Syphile's own reply was cut off by the sudden beginning of the fight as a knife wielding child suddenly rushed her from behind. Managing to spin and face her attacker the blades bit into the carapace armor covering her arm. Whipping her staff up, she caught the mutant drow boy in the ribs and sent him sprawling off to the side. Closing her eyes for a moment Syphile ordered Khul to begin actively reshaping and storing her mana as the lightning element. Opening her eyes and resuming the staff fighting ready stance she looked at her charging opponents. It was time to dance.

Glae'dryn looked up from her drink in interest as the crowd began to gasp and shout in excitement. She had heard the announcers introduction but dismissed it as the usual tripe such establishments came up with for such events. A young feral warrior visiting from the moons, Hah! Shoving herself into a position by the wall overlooking the arena, Glae'dryn gazed down on the fight. It wasn't really what she was expecting given the excitement of the crowd and the noises emanating from the pit. For one thing there was very little blood staining the ground or the remaining fighters. For another the lone fighter was NOT a feral.

Looking around carefully, she saw that three of the young girls' opponents were down and she was busy dancing away from, and around, the two adults. Three bodies were scattered around the arena floor: The one in the center was lying down in a fetal position, its hair covering its face, the second was laying against the wall blood slowly leaking from a indentation on the top of her skull, and the third was on the other side of the arena halfway between the wall and the center twitching like a human having with intense brain fever.

There were a few things in common with all of them, their hair was frizzy and still moving of its own accord and each of the Xuile'solen children had multiple burn marks covering their bodies. These were signs of mana arts. No feral had ever had mana, but the bushy tail, furry orange dog ears, and extended canines begged to differ. She hadn't seen any feral with such tails before, but it reminded her of the foxes she had seen the Qin'dalasque riding in her tour of the border city Val'Raveran. There might be something there. Was this some new variant on the drow form? Or perhaps ver'drowendar with partial deformations like the berserkers? Her mind reeling as she watched the young girl trade brightly flashing blows with the older drow outcasts, Glae actually considered the possibility that the announcer had been telling the truth.

Learning the stranger had entered with a group of Sarghress regulars she shook her head and quickly went to the arena office and asked for a messenger bat. If this was her target she might just be in luck, but even if it wasn't this was still something Illharess Shimi'lande needed to know. The Sarghress were sheltering something twisted and impure, it was their holy duty as the Val'Kyorl'solenurn to make sure it was not a threat.

Commander Ragnar, Private Joel, and Private Miko watched the fight unfolding in the pit with glee. They had each placed a months' pay as Sarghress legionnaires on the girl below and the odds were 5 to one against her even with the handicaps for her superior weapon and armor. As it was an unlimited arena that hosted Elvin fights in addition to slaves, mana attacks were allowed, but no penalty had been issued as Syphile's opponents had been Xuile'solen. [i]Too bad for the sightless 'long-ears' that Syphile's attacks were primarily elemental.[/i] Ragnar thought sadistically.

The Embiri, Private Miko, had expressed some worry for Syphile at the beginning, upon seeing she had not only five opponents but that each were carrying a nasty array of weapons and would be resistant to the mana attacks. After the first two went down her worries quieted and she began to watch the match intently.

The Xuile'solen child beside Syphile was down and breathing painfully as Syphile turned to keep an eye on her other four opponents. [i]Damn it.[/i] she thought as she took in the four other opponents and the one lying on the ground beside her, [i]Two more than we've ever had to work with before. Might as well take this one out before he gets his malnourished carcass off the ground[/i] she thought, jabbing the now electrified staff into the side of his head sharply enough to give him a concussion.

Taking a quick glance at their opponents, Khul and Syphile began gauging them as they were being taught. The two adults were the fastest and very likely the most dangerous; the 'mother' held a spear while the 'father' wielded an axe. The boy she had just bashed in the head had been carrying a pair of knives, it was too late to pick them up, and beyond a general knowledge of how to properly use a pair of daggers, they were by no means experienced with them. The closer of the two children looked to be about 18 and was carrying a large war hammer; slow but powerful, she'd likely be dead if it managed to hit her and it would be difficult to block. The farther one carried a pair of small axes, probably meant for throwing, but as they were still in the girls hands it was likely she didn't want to lose her weapons on the chance she might get a hit.

Making a split second decision Syphile shot for the girl with the axes. Hearing her move, the Xuile'solen began to shift their positions to follow her. Upon closing in on the younger girl, Syphile brought her staff whistling around to impact the girls left wrist. Hearing the attack her opponent hissed and tried to lower her arm to avoid the blow. Instead of losing her hand, she lost the axe. The return strike whipped toward Syphile's neck, and she bent backwards at the waist, coming back up in a hand stand, her right foot impacting her opponents jaw in the process.

As the younger drow righted herself she smiled seeing the other girl reeling from the blows accompanying electrical blasts. It was time to end this before the others could get here and put her in real trouble. Leaping forward, an impressive two feet into the air, Syphile brought the end of the staff down on the 'sightless' girls head leaving a massive welt in the hard bony skull. As her staff connected and sent its electrical payload through the girl's body to make sure she didn't get back up for a while, the Xuile'solens remaining axe came around and bit into Syphiles armor, leaving a cut on her leg.

Cursing, Syphile used the length of her staff to vault across a stretch of the arena in the direction of the final Xuile'solen child wielding the war hammer. As Xuile'solen relied mostly on sound to navigate this impromptu act gained her some precious time and distance from the elder sightless. Landing to the right of the mace wielder, Syphille swept her staff upward, aiming to connect with the older Drow's chin. Sensing the incoming pressure of her weapon, the boy swept the haft of his hammer before him, deflecting the blow. Using the momentum from the act the mace wielder spun, bringing the large stone head around in a wide devastating arc. Ducking beneath the blow Syphile backpedalled furiously, avoiding the hammers whistling arcs: right, down from the left, up, from the right again, a quick reverse from the left, again and again. Backed to the arena wall, Syphile raised her staff parallel to the ground to meet the latest blow from above and the staff shattered in the center leaving her with a pair of shorter rods with jagged edges. Falling back against the arena wall, she quickly rolled to the side to avoid another relentless blow from the hammer which shattered against the arena wall. [i]Finally, some luck.[/i] Syphile thought.

Private Joel grinned. At the rate that Syphille was winning, he would be able to earn enough to pay off some of his more serious debts, and still have enough left over to spend on other things. He winced, seeing the Drow girl electrocute her third Xuile'Solen. While he had never been on the receiving end of any type of lightning, it looked painful. Extremely painful, he noted, watching the young Sightless twitch spasmodically on the ground.

[i]Ouch![/i] he winced again, seeing Syphille begin working on the older sightless woman. He made a mental note to never annoy Syphille again in any way, lest he find himself on the receiving end of her ire.

Syphile was having trouble with her two final opponents, he noticed, they were rather inseparable, always trying to maneuver to double team his squad mate. She wasn't giving them an easy time of it at least, for every move they made to preposition, Syphile would scurry the opposite in an attempt to keep facing a single opponent at any given time. [i]heh, looks like she still hasn't gotten used to fighting multiple opponents. How did they even see though?[/i] Joel wondered. He had heard that some of the stronger emberi trained with blindfolds on like the grey 'long ears' did but the graylings had magic eyes on their weapons… such things had stopped making sense to him long ago. There were white elves, grey elves, there used to be brown elves, black elves, spider elves, dragon elves, snake elves and upon meeting Syphile, there were apparently wolf elves. But what were the 'sightless'?

As he watched Syphile catch per opponents spear with one half of her fractured staff and shatter it with the other he pondered the question. What made the sightless different from the other elves he had encountered? Well they had no eyes for one thing, hence the term sightless. They had long prehensile tongues and heavily canine teeth, but so did many elves. Well the teeth anyways, not the tongue. The ears were also a little odd, much wider than they should be and always moving… that was about it. So what creature had all of those features he though as he watched Syphile flip backwards repeatedly, trying to gain some distance from her attackers.

Large adjustable ears, poor or no sight, canine teeth and long tongues… there were numerous creatures like that in the underworld he thought in frustration. If only he had some other attributes to add to the list.

He broke off his musings abruptly as a large blob of white guano fell on his nose from a passing messenger bat. Bats? Bat elves? Maybe… but the dragon elves the Black Dragon Arena was using had wings so maybe not… his thoughts were interrupted again by a flash of light and an explosion from the pit below. Looking around frantically his eyes bugged as he saw the elder male sightless crumple to the ground, a large smoking hole in his chest.

Tlek'gyr was furious.

She and her family had spent the last century living in relative peace in the outer caverns between the bright and the wet air cities of the sighted elves but that had all ended two months ago. Life had been hard for them but they had endured and carved out a fine home for themselves in the deep pool cavern where there were plenty of fish and large bugs near the pool for them to eat, and it was quite satisfying to chow down on a fine meal of leg-worm after a long fight with the beasts.

But it seemed such things were not meant to last; last month a group of sighted elves had come with ropes and clubs and had taken her family to fight in a sandy pit day after day just to be allowed some barely adequate food. Mushrooms of all things - the savages.

She and her family had survived eight fights since then by working like they had hunted, as a family. They would surround their target and start whistling in order to keep 'sight' of their surroundings and their prey. Once they were all in place they would rush their prey from all sides and start stabbing it, never giving it time to recover or focus on a single one of them. But today was different, she could hear it, her family was dying. Jlof'jik, her youngest had attacked too soon and the sighted elf had sent him down screaming. That had been enough to send her into a rage but it had not ended there, her daughter, her precious daughter had fallen next, and then her eldest son.

When she had finally been able to reach the swiftly jumping elf she had abandoned all pretence and attacked her with a savage fury only a mother could manage. So many times her ears had watched the vile sighted elf dodge or block by the barest margins, always jumping and twirling, keeping her mate from helping her, it was infuriating. Finally she had lost her last shred of control and swung her staff around like a club only to have the nasty little girl before her break it. Thrusting the splintered end of the spear made staff at her opponent she watched, her ears twitching in surprise, as the girl fell backwards and kept doing so, all the way across the pit. What was this creature?

As the creature finished moving she and her husband spread out to different points in the arena to avoid the possibility of the girl missing one of them only to hit the other with any attack she might come up with and prepared to charge.

During all of this the figure had not moved from its position. Was it wounded? It didn't seem to be favoring either arm or leg as far as she could hear. Hissing an order to her husband both of them charged. As they neared the halfway point in the arena their opponent stood from her position and threw one of its weapons at her husband forcing him to dodge and slow down. Confused, Tlek'gyr listened to the pole as it spun back toward the opposite arena wall and imbedded in the stonework. It was foolish to throw away one's own weapons and if nothing else the little savage had shown herself to be anything but foolish. Hefting what was left of the spear she prepared to impale the child who had caused her and her family so much pain this day.

As she hurled the shaft at her opponent the girl raised her arms and remaining fragment of staff at Tlek'gyrs husband and a thunderous crack rent the air. As the shockwave of air and sound passed through her body she doubled over, clutching her head in agony. Crumpling to the ground she removed one of her shaking hands from her ears and sniffed it; blood. The sound had broken her ears and made her well and truly blind.

Circle of Blood medical bay.

Syphile screamed as the remnants of the spear were being pulled from the side of her leg. [i]Sharess damn-it![/i]she thought furiously. [i]Shoddy, cheap, piece of shit bug armor![/i] "OWW!" she roared as the bottom portion was yanked unceremoniously from her thigh. "I'm going to kill Joel when I get out of here;" She growled menacingly. "Him and his stupid armorist."

"Now, now." A voice replied coming up behind her. "That's not very charitable of you, now is it? You should at least give the boy a head start while he pays off his debts. He did find you some affordable armor after all." The figure emerged from the poorly lit passage way to reveal a beaming Commander Ragnar. "And by the damage the stuff has taken it looks like you need more training, it saved you a good deep scratch at least four times down here. Not to mention your bright idea to catch that war hammer with your arm." He said tossing the shattered carapace at her.

"You did well out there though; fetched us a pretty ada while you were at it too. It's a pity we can't sell you really, I had to knock heads just to get down here, the passage way was so thick with bidders offering small clans for you that I had to leave Joel and Miko outside to block the passage."

"Oh thank you so much for curbing your excess, I'll be sure to remember it next time you try to bother me for cash." She groused.

"Ah, don't be like that!" the commander mock whined. "I made sure to take out your cut from our winnings." He said grinning and throwing a heavy leather sack at her. "An ada in five from each of us, as agreed."

"It was an ada in four, you cheapskate." Syphile said glaring at him and continuing the game. It was useful for blowing off steam and the man tended to be more jovial when she went along with it, taking more time to teach and less to spar; something she was always grateful for.

"Yes, well, the other ada pays for your continued lessons," came the smirking reply. "Ah ah ah, no using magic on your commanding officer outside of the sparring ring! And how do you even have any energy left after that fight? Never mind, that's not important. We have to get moving; your aunt and her army have turned up outside and indicated that we're to return A.S.A.P. She looked pissed."

Quill'yate Yurun'hiir Val'Sarghress was an imposing figure and knew it. Standing over Syphile, she glared down at her 'niece' as they strode along Chel'el'Sussoloth's under-city streets waiting for an explanation. As she and her Highland Raiders had just returned on the far side of Chel earlier that week from a long five year trek through some newly unearthed ruins on the over world, she had allowed them some time to enjoy themselves at the gladiatorial arenas known as the Ring of Fire.

She and her girls had been shocked to find nearly a quarter of Chel in ruins, but as the story slowly came out from the surviving civilians, their shock has quickly turned to fury. Their last week had been spent giving the bodies of the dead and inedible a proper send off and gathering things of great value for salvaging. The War-Golems she thought should be gathered before the Sharen could come back for them, if for no other reason than to deny the dragons their use.

Quill'yates mouth quirked up slightly as she remembered the salvaging process; transporting the Golems had been relatively difficult before she had found the large violet scorpion Mech. The thing had incredible strength, a long wide back and impressive speed for such a large construct. It had taken her most of that morning to work out the kinks in the basic controls for the droid, but it was one of those times she had been quite happy with the knowledge that she was a battle sorcerer nearly six and a half centuries in age.

This morning marked the end of this salvage run as the pack lizards were full of weapons, armor and the Golems they had collected. The War Golems were ready to go and it seemed they had yet to be noticed by anyone important. A pack of Xuile'Solen had got it into their heads that her troops would make a good meal two days back, but no one had died; well, no one except the sightless family. Carefully disguising the caravan, she had allowed herself and most of her troops some downtime at the local arenas and bars.

She had been happily watching a fascinating fight between some Jaal'Darya changeling and a quintet of Xuile'solen when Laele'aell and two of her Fallen Legion handlers had appeared behind her and informed her of the current situation. Laele had wanted to drop into the ring, kill the gladiators, retrieve the target and dice anyone who got in her way while delivering Syphile home; her Fallen Legion handlers wanted to let the battle finish and extract the girl quietly, they had figured informing her was a convenient way to curb Laele's excess, because mindless as their commander may have become, she still took orders from known superior officers.

Broken from her reverie by Syphiles voice she returned to the present; listening expectantly. Syphile spoke for a long time as they made their way back to the caravan and continued to talk as they sat there, Quill'yates troops gathering around them. The ancient general listened quietly as the young sorceress detailed the trials of the last few months; the Nidraa'chal war, the pressure from the headmistress, becoming changed, the confrontation with her mother, her apprenticeship and subsequent escapes from the embittered Sillice Val'Sharen Sarghress, Her assignment to Ariel and the troubles that supplied her, and finally her relationship with the War Meat and how it had brought her to the Circle of Blood arena. It was quite a story, she had to admit. It wasn't as harsh as what she and many of the orphans of Chel had endured, but it was certainly more interesting than their own early years.

"So what about your new friend, this Khul'shalkrum you keep mentioning. How does he fit into all of this?" she asked. To her surprise Syphile began laughing. Looking back on the girl from her position inside the cock pit of the scorpion mech she saw Syphile doubled over in tearful laughter.

"He is the reason" Syphile gasped out, wiping her eyes and returning her gaze to Quill'yate "that I have come to doubt the sanity of the tainted." Noticing Quill'yates raised eyebrow from the approaching war Gollum she continued more calmly. "He is not my friend but rather my tenant, my seed as it were but for the fact that I am not tainted. It's hard to explain. He's the ethereal that I summoned from the nether realms, but he isn't a demon. He was bound to me during the ceremony but he hasn't spread through my aura. His presence has changed my mana but our energies are separate and seem to be different in nature. Mostly it just gives me a headache when I think about it."

"…Uh huh. Get on, we need to be getting home quickly. Your Halme and Embiri friends will finish their business here without you. We're due back home."

Fighting down her distaste of the area, Warden Glae'dryn followed her target into the ruins of the Nidraa'chal war. Looking around at the rubble, she shuddered. This place gave her the creeps. Picking her way around the rubble she made an effort to stay hidden from the rapidly returning Highland raiders while maintaining a close eye on the young fox girl.

[i]Strange[/i] she thought, observing the Sarghress caravan [i]That such golems should be left to rust. The new demon arts of the Sharen might make them obsolete true; but their worth was still immense. It was a wonder that they were yet to be collected. Truly though, it is a wonder that much of the battle field had not been salvaged by commoners or clans long since. Nearly half the Sharen army had fallen in theses ruins, and several of the Deves houses had completely disappeared here.[/i]

As she watched, musing, she noted the conversation between the darkling general and her target. Interesting, if she could have a conversation with one of their generals, she must have some importance. As she watched the Highland Raiders finished packing up, there was some momentary confusion, a fair number of them were climbing onto the various Golems. Why would they do that? Her answer came moments later when the various groups of Golems began to glow and change shape to become pack dragons. Light sorcery. "It makes a strange kind of sense I suppose," Glae murmured to herself. "If our informants are worth their commissions, the Sarghress raiders often transport highly valuable relics in their caravans. Light sorcery would be a logical step for security. At least with the more sensitive items. But do they hire the sorcerers or train their troops? Most of our information says they don't put much emphasis on the mana arts, it's always been one of the Sarghress weaknesses."

"And so the plot thickens." Came a voice from behind her followed by a sharp pain and darkness.

"And so the plot thickens." Mave whispered into the Drowussus ear before bashing her over the head with the hilt of her ninjato. This was the fourth grayling spy this month she had redirected. Sighing she lifted the young woman onto her shoulder and started off towards the Drowussu fortress. Grunting at the weight, Maeve sighed. At least she wouldn't have trouble acting drunk this time, the girl stunk of enough alcohol to make it seem real and was heavy enough that tripping and swaying wouldn't be much of a problem.

[i]Let's get this over with.[/i]


End file.
